2020 was a terrible year for UK trade. Overall, UK exports in goods contracted by almost 15%, down by £54.5 bln[i] in the twelve-month period, this is even worse than the contraction seen in the UK economy as a whole, which was just under 10% in GDP terms. [ii] Furthermore, the early 2021 bilateral trade… Read more

In recent years, we have heard much of the ‘frontier firms’ – those at the top end of the productivity scale, leaping further ahead of other firms – the hares and the tortoises, if you will. But our recent research, examining Companies House data for more than 17,000 firms across 12 sectors, suggests that small and… Read more

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

ERC held a joint workshop with Midlands Innovation for researchers with an interest in innovation systems and local policy. The 25 attendees represented all Midlands universities. Presentations covered some recent survey work on business innovation in Coventry (Stephen Roper, ERC), the work of Midlands Innovation (Sue Clayton, Nottingham), City-ERDI (Simon Collinson, Birmingham and the recent… Read more

When Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, stood up to present the Autumn Statement he had a problem and a plan. The problem combined the hit on growth from Brexit, stubbornly low productivity and stretched public finances. The plan focuses on investing to boost productivity. So where do small firms fit in? Well – unlike many recent… Read more

Community of Interest on Open Innovation in SMEs: Advancing Research with Policy and Practice Impact A one day conference will be held on Friday, 28 November, 2014, 9.30-17.30 Venue: Newcastle University Business School The conference will act as the impetus for the launch of the ‘Community of Interest (COI) on Open innovation in SMEs’, sponsored by the ERC,… 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

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

Rural businesses in parts of England have shown remarkable resilience during Covid-19 by innovating and adapting in response to the severe economic challenges of the pandemic, according to a major new survey from the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE) led by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC). More than a third of rural firms… Read more

When it comes to climate change, most attention is placed on the need for action by governments, big business, and individual householders. There are nearly 6 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, employing 16.8 million people, yet they attract far less scrutiny for their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, and tend to… Read more