Skills and labour shortages hinder rural business performance and growth NICRE’s latest State of Rural Enterprise Report Labour and skills availability: impacts on rural enterprise finds more than half of rural businesses in the North East, South West and West Midlands find it difficult to recruit or retain suitably-skilled staff, with a high proportion of… Read more
The Business Desk : Social Enterprises vital to post COVID-19 recovery Financial Times: Starting a business in the midst of a pandemic The Times: Number of new companies set up this year is likely to break record The Times: How small businesses can get one over the big boys in Zoom revolution IPSE: IPSE sets out… Read more
Striking new research findings from the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) at Warwick Business School show that while three quarters of UK firms acknowledge that they have responsibilities to address employee mental health, only half actually have any initiatives in place. What’s more, this ‘attitude to action’ gap is widest in the smallest firms, which are… Read more
Imagine two businesses. One is a tech start-up that has developed new AI software. Another is a well-established restaurant in a small town serving their local community. Both count as ‘micro’ businesses, yet their needs will be worlds apart, and no single policy could serve them both well. Micro businesses are often bundled into the… Read more
In the world of small businesses, innovation often hinges not on internal R&D budgets, but on the ability to learn from others. Haldane (2018) observed that a major productivity problem for 99% of UK firms is the failure of diffusion—the inability of good ideas and practices to spread from the leading firms to the rest…. Read more
On 12th June, we joined forces with the National Enterprise Network to hold a Micro Business Roundtable event at The Shard. In 2024, there were over 1.2 million micro businesses in the UK, employing around 4.2 million people. Despite their significance to the economy and society, micro businesses are often excluded from national and international… Read more
The long-anticipated UK–EU Reset Summit, held in London on 19 May 2025, marked a significant, despite cautious, turning point in the post-Brexit relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. As the first structured political dialogue since the implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in 2021, the summit offered a new platform… Read more
Launched on Small Business Saturday on 7th December 2024, the details of what the new Business Growth Service (Mk2) will provide for the small business sector across England has yet to be revealed, but we are assured it will not be long now. Under the previous Government, the business support landscape in England was weakened… Read more
We are pleased to announce the successful applicants for the DBT call for proposals on research into business investment. Following a competitive selection process, the following research projects have been awarded funding: Professor Marc Cowling (Oxford Brookes Business School) – £20,000 for Estimating Underinvestment in the UK Business Sector. Dr Thao Nguyen (Newcastle University) – £7,500… Read more
We are pleased to announce the successful applicants for the 2025 call for proposals under the Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) funding initiative for secondary analyses of the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS). After a competitive selection process, the following research projects have been awarded funding: Jorge Velez Ospina (University of Sussex and National… Read more
Place-based policy is well-established in the UK. However, in my research on business support for creatives and conversations with policymakers, I have observed that ‘place’ is often used interchangeably with ‘location’, with no distinction made between the two. This observation has caught my attention, not only as a former geographer, but also because I believe… Read more
Creative PEC launches new research exploring how the creative industries participate in innovation. The report, produced by Dr Rita Nana-Cheraa and Prof Stephen Roper from the Enterprise Research Centre at University of Warwick, investigates the landscape of innovation in creative industries sub-sectors, and also compares Creative Industries innovation activity to Manufacturing and Other Services sectors. Key… Read more
State of Rural Enterprise Report:
Skills and labour shortages hinder rural business performance and growth NICRE’s latest State of Rural Enterprise Report Labour and skills availability: impacts on rural enterprise finds more than half of rural businesses in the North East, South West and West Midlands find it difficult to recruit or retain suitably-skilled staff, with a high proportion of… Read more
COVID-19 Press coverage for the ERC
The Business Desk : Social Enterprises vital to post COVID-19 recovery Financial Times: Starting a business in the midst of a pandemic The Times: Number of new companies set up this year is likely to break record The Times: How small businesses can get one over the big boys in Zoom revolution IPSE: IPSE sets out… Read more
Mind the (Support) Gap: SMEs and the Mental Health Disconnect
Striking new research findings from the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) at Warwick Business School show that while three quarters of UK firms acknowledge that they have responsibilities to address employee mental health, only half actually have any initiatives in place. What’s more, this ‘attitude to action’ gap is widest in the smallest firms, which are… Read more
Time to Think Differently About Micro Firms
Imagine two businesses. One is a tech start-up that has developed new AI software. Another is a well-established restaurant in a small town serving their local community. Both count as ‘micro’ businesses, yet their needs will be worlds apart, and no single policy could serve them both well. Micro businesses are often bundled into the… Read more
Mavens and the missing link: Unlocking innovation diffusion in small firms
In the world of small businesses, innovation often hinges not on internal R&D budgets, but on the ability to learn from others. Haldane (2018) observed that a major productivity problem for 99% of UK firms is the failure of diffusion—the inability of good ideas and practices to spread from the leading firms to the rest…. Read more
ERC/NEN Micro Business Roundtable
On 12th June, we joined forces with the National Enterprise Network to hold a Micro Business Roundtable event at The Shard. In 2024, there were over 1.2 million micro businesses in the UK, employing around 4.2 million people. Despite their significance to the economy and society, micro businesses are often excluded from national and international… Read more
Post-Brexit Pragmatism? What the UK–EU Reset Summit Means for SMEs
The long-anticipated UK–EU Reset Summit, held in London on 19 May 2025, marked a significant, despite cautious, turning point in the post-Brexit relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. As the first structured political dialogue since the implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in 2021, the summit offered a new platform… Read more
The New Business Growth Service – Six Steps to Growth
Launched on Small Business Saturday on 7th December 2024, the details of what the new Business Growth Service (Mk2) will provide for the small business sector across England has yet to be revealed, but we are assured it will not be long now. Under the previous Government, the business support landscape in England was weakened… Read more
Successful Applicants for DBT Call for Research on Business Investment
We are pleased to announce the successful applicants for the DBT call for proposals on research into business investment. Following a competitive selection process, the following research projects have been awarded funding: Professor Marc Cowling (Oxford Brookes Business School) – £20,000 for Estimating Underinvestment in the UK Business Sector. Dr Thao Nguyen (Newcastle University) – £7,500… Read more
Successful Applicants for the 2025 Longitudinal Small Business Survey Secondary Analysis Call
We are pleased to announce the successful applicants for the 2025 call for proposals under the Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) funding initiative for secondary analyses of the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS). After a competitive selection process, the following research projects have been awarded funding: Jorge Velez Ospina (University of Sussex and National… Read more
The value of entrepreneurial placemaking for rural development: supporting rural creatives
Place-based policy is well-established in the UK. However, in my research on business support for creatives and conversations with policymakers, I have observed that ‘place’ is often used interchangeably with ‘location’, with no distinction made between the two. This observation has caught my attention, not only as a former geographer, but also because I believe… Read more
What can we learn about the innovation performance of the Creative Industries from the UK Innovation Survey?
Creative PEC launches new research exploring how the creative industries participate in innovation. The report, produced by Dr Rita Nana-Cheraa and Prof Stephen Roper from the Enterprise Research Centre at University of Warwick, investigates the landscape of innovation in creative industries sub-sectors, and also compares Creative Industries innovation activity to Manufacturing and Other Services sectors. Key… Read more
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