GEM 2018 Report Launched

NatWest, Aston Business School and The Entrepreneurs Network launch the 2018 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) today at NatWest Entrepreneur Accelerator Speakers at the launch include Paul Thwaite, MD Head of Sales & Specialist Businesses, NatWest & Mark Hart, Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Aston Business School who leads on the GEM UK project and is… Read more

Small firms and formal intellectual property protection: A paradox?

We know that firms use knowledge protection mechanisms to limit imitation and enhance their ability to appropriate the returns to their innovative investments. Recent research at the ERC suggests that both formal (e.g. patents) and informal (e.g. secrecy) knowledge protection mechanisms are important for the innovation returns of small firms (those with fewer than 50… Read more

Getting the right recipe: collaboration strategies for radical and incremental innovators in services.

ERC Research Paper No 77 is published today. Successful innovation requires both effective idea generation and commercialization. Here, we investigate the benefits of alternative collaboration strategies across the idea generation and commercialization stages of the innovation process. Does collaboration generate complementarities between stages of the innovation process? Or, as external collaboration is costly and risky,… Read more

ERC Conference 2019 – Strengthening Sectors

On the 27th June the ERC welcomed over 100 delegates to The Shard for the 6th State of Small Business Britain Conference, which this year focused on the topical theme of ‘Strengthening Sectors’. The conference, which was chaired this year by Professor Nola Hewitt-Dundas of Queens University Belfast, covered a wide range of issues relating… Read more

Strengthening Sectors – ERC’s 6th State of Small Business conference

Understanding small business dynamics is central to our work at the Enterprise Research Centre and once a year we gather at the Shard in London with 150 researchers, stakeholders, policy makers and small business owners to discuss and debate the state of the small business community. The sixth of these events was held at the… Read more

State of Small Business Britain Report 2019

The State of Small Business Britain report 2019  has been launched at the 6th Annual State of Small Business Britain conference held by the ERC. The increasing levels of political uncertainty in the UK sets the context for this review of trends in the small business community in mid-2019. We seek to provide an overview… Read more

Press Release : State of Small Business Britain Conference 2019

The sixth annual ERC State of Small Business Britain Conference takes place today at The Shard in London. The conference, which this year is being held in partnership with the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), focuses on how we can strengthen key sectors of the UK economy. At the event we will present new comparative research… Read more

Innovation and productivity: How strong is the connection?

Innovation and productivity: How strong is the connection? ‘Innovation’ is a much used (and abused) term employed to describe everything from flea collars for dogs[1] to electric cars. As a result, measuring innovation can be tricky, particularly in service sectors where firms’ relationships to customers are often individual and bespoke. Fortunately, the kind people at… Read more

May 2019 Press Coverage

The Metro.co.uk 01/05/2019 A second great depression is coming and 99.9% likely in two years. Insider.co.uk 13/05/2019 Par Equity backs Northern Irish tech companies BizPlus 13/05/2019 Taking the Pulse of Laid back Businesses The Irish News 14/05/2019 Tech firms enjoy £3.2m investment boost