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

Building relationships between Britain and Greece: Science Parks and Agri-Tech

ERC Research Fellow Panagiotis Kyriakopoulos  is organising an event in Athens which aims to facilitate the establishment of new partnerships and foster meaningful interactions among managers and owners of science parks in both Greece and the UK. It will be a hybrid event with the objective of strengthening connections between stakeholders within the entrepreneurial ecosystem… Read more

ERC Research Showcase

  On 22nd February 2024 we held an ERC Research Showcase event at Aston University’s Enterprise Hub at John Cadbury House. As usual we had a varied agenda, with the ERC team reporting on a selection of the research projects recently published and currently in progress. We covered a range of themes:   Mark Hart… Read more

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2023/2024 report

25 Years and Growing The United Kingdom’s score in the National Entrepreneurial Context Index (NECI) continues to fall, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2023/2024 Report, released today in Morocco. As part of the research, national experts in the UK were asked to assess the country’s Entrepreneurship Framework Conditions (EFCs). These assessments are the… Read more

State of Rural Enterprise report

NICRE’s State of Rural Enterprise Report The rural economy post-pandemic: opportunities and barriers for business growth calls for continued improvements in infrastructure in rural areas. Businesses in rural areas perceive new opportunities for growth but long-standing challenges such as affordable housing, transport and broadband capacity are hampering take-up, according to a major new survey from the National… Read more

Team Scotland’s Export Promotion Support: evaluation

The Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) and the Centre for Business Prosperity (CBP) at Aston University were commissioned by the Scottish Government to undertake the evaluation of Scotland’s export promotion support provided by its delivery partners. The Scottish Government provides funding to delivery partners to deliver the customer facing export promotion support and services offered to… Read more

Rural SMEs and the environment

Environmental considerations play a critical role in rural businesses’ decision-making, however, barriers exist which prevent them from fully transitioning to net zero, according to a major new survey from the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE). Four out of ten rural businesses ‘always’ consider the environment when making decisions with 57% taking action to… Read more

ISBE 2023

The opening plenary at the ISBE conference started with  a welcome by the Aston University VC Aleks Subic and the West Midlands Mayor Andy Street. Mark Hart then chaired the opening plenary which started with a fireside chat with Richard Harpin (Founder & Chairman at HomeServe and Growth Partner) exploring his views on building a… Read more