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

National launch of Charter for inclusive entrepreneurship to help minimise barriers to business

A new charter aiming to support entrepreneurs of all backgrounds to start or grow their business  is being launched by the University of Nottingham. The charter, aiming to minimise barriers to entrepreneurship for underserved and under-represented groups through creation of a more inclusive ecosystem, was launched nationally today, at the Shard in London, by the University… Read more

Re-imagining the entrepreneur

Who do you think of when you think of an Entrepreneur? In the latest  blog published today by NICRE , Stephen Roper, Deputy Director , ERC and Co-Director , NICRE dispels the ‘urban’ image many may conjure up by exploring findings that entreprenuership is actually more common in rural rather than urban areas. Read the… Read more

Changing the late payment culture for SMEs

In the 10th edition of the Exploring Enterprise podcast series from the Enterprise Research Centre, Mark Hart is joined by Philip King, previously the Small Business Commissioner and responsible for advising small businesses on their trading relationships and Ant Persse, Chief Executive of Optimum Finance, a specialist invoice finance company  and newly established Saltare Technologies Limited, a… Read more

How much entrepreneurial activity is there in rural areas?

Research by Serdal Ozusaglam, Stephen Roper and Neha Prashar using the data from the UK Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM)  found there are higher levels in rural areas than in urban.  Entrepreneurial activity – creating and developing a new business – provides the opportunity for new wealth creation in a community and creates the potential for new employment. In… Read more

Entrepreneurial Behaviour and the COVID-19 Pandemic – A Collapse in Confidence or a Positive Response to Uncertainty?

Mark Hart, Deputy Director of the ERC and Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Aston Business School uses data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Annual Population Surveys to examine the impact COVID-19 has had on entrepreneurship in the UK. This blog highlights the work of a new project “Lifting the Lid on Enterprise Diversity & Growth… Read more

Why do Policymakers Need a Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) in the West Midlands?

Dr Meng Song, Aston University and  Professor Mark Hart, Deputy Director of the ERC and Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Aston Business School. authored a blog discussing  the need to examine the demographic characteristics and motivation of entrepreneurs to increase the understanding of people who create new businesses and to track them throughout their start-up journey… Read more

Do resilient entrepreneurs lead more resilient businesses?

In the context of recent events like the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit, the ability of a business to survive a crisis is of heightened interest to many, including business leaders, support agencies and policymakers.  Previous research examining the resilience of firms – their ability to survive adversity and potentially to emerge stronger – has considered… Read more

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report

Opportunity Amid Disruption The 23rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report, unveiled today at the Dubai Expo, measures entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium and low-income economies. Data is gathered via a survey of at least 2,000 respondents in each country who answer questions on their entrepreneurial activity, attitudes to enterprise and view of their… Read more

Income Protection for Micro-entrepreneurs Under COVID-19: Serving Neoliberal Interests or Small Traders?

The Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference in Cardiff, October 2021, was a joyous occasion that brought researchers together face-to-face for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The paper awarded ‘Best in Conference’ analysed UK policy to protect the income of small traders and microbusiness directors during COVID19, asking whether the policy… Read more

Building an inclusive human resource community: Insights from an action research study of ethnic minority microbusinesses

The importance of human resource (HR) practices to firm productivity is a hardy perennial in academic and policy commentary. Bafflingly absent from this discourse is an important segment of the small firm population: ethnic minority microbusinesses (EMMBs), which consist of firms with between 1 and 9 employees. This omission is surprising given the economic and… Read more

GEM UK 2020 report

The GEM UK 2020 report is published today. Authored by the UK team and sponsored by NatWest the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is the most authoritative annual research into entrepreneurial activity and trends. While the global business landscape has changed since 2020, the report and the data within is full of insight as we consider the state of entrepreneurship… Read more

GEM NI Report 2019

Published today this report, completed by Queen’s University Belfast in conjunction with the Enterprise Research Centre, provides international benchmark data for entrepreneurial activity in Northern Ireland, on a comparable basis. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is an international project which seeks to provide information on the entrepreneurial landscape of 50 countries in 2019. This is important… Read more

Crisis entrepreneurs

Is now a good time to start a new business? In this FT article published this morning, ERC Deputy Director Mark Hart says we could be seeing an uptick of “crisis entrepreneurs” adding that these are people who have lost their job during the pandemic and have no other choice in the current labour market than… Read more

Business resilience: location, location, location!

Anticipating adversity, and undertaking crisis planning, are associated with increased resilience in businesses. Yet research published earlier this year by the ERC (carried out before the pandemic) found many small firms struggle to identify their most potent future threats and when crisis hits, most have no contingency plans, resorting to depleting their financial resources to… Read more

The second lockdown risks an insolvency tsunami

Thousands of businesses across England will remain shuttered today as the new month-long coronavirus lockdown takes effect. Citing new scientific evidence showing an expected surge in cases nationwide over the coming weeks, the Government finally bowed to pressure and abandoned its previous regional tiering strategy last weekend. Critics argue that a sharp ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown… Read more

Chancellor’s new measures “leave 3m entrepreneurs high and dry”

News release – for immediate use 24 September 2020  Millions of early-stage entrepreneurs and limited company directors “thrown to the wolves” despite extensions to support schemes Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s ‘winter economy plan’ still excludes millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners from support, the Enterprise Research Centre has warned. Key measures announced by Mr Sunak… Read more

Support for entrepreneurs critical for post-Covid recovery – GEM

      Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report calls on policymakers to create right conditions for an enterprise-led economic recovery worldwide. Policymakers around the world must provide clear advice and practical support for entrepreneurs to ensure global economies recover from the devastation of coronavirus, a new report says. Presenting a snapshot of support measures introduced by… Read more

Diagnosing COVID-19 Impacts on Entrepreneurship – Exploring Policy Remedies for Recovery

The impact of policy decisions can play an important role in entrepreneurial success. A new GEM report: “Diagnosing COVID-19 Impacts on Entrepreneurship – Exploring Policy Remedies for Recovery”,  sponsored by Shopify, features over 50 GEM research teams around the world sharing how their government’s response to COVID-19 compared to previous crises and the entrepreneurship policy… Read more

Left in the cold: How company directors are excluded from the Government’s coronavirus support schemes

The Government’s various coronavirus support schemes aim to provide a safety net for both employees and the self-employed during the suddenly-imposed ‘lockdown’ period now affecting the UK economy. But while the headline measures announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak over recent weeks – including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS) aimed at employees, Coronavirus Business Interruption… Read more

Press Coverage : Covid19: Critique and Proposals to Develop More Comprehensive and Inclusive Support for the SelfEmployed. Research Report. April 2020

Birmingham Live: Coronavirus crisis could mean 100,000 jobs lost around Birmingham, expert warns Radio Interview on You-Tube Telegraph : Blackhole of financial support threatens to ‘decimate’ generation of entrepreneurs Mirror : Seven million workers to be paid by state as firms join coronavirus furlough scheme                

‘Stay Home’ and Work? Implications of COVID-19 and the UK Governmental Response for Self-Employed Women

Given last week’s government announcement of the stimulus bill meant to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the UK economy, it is important to recognise the implications for women broadly, and self-employed women more specifically. Such bills are notoriously gender blind, thus discounting the impact on the extent to which self-employed women are… Read more

‘What Next for Women’s Enterprise Policy?

On the 12th March the ERC joined forces with the ISBE Gender and Enterprise Network and welcomed over 60 delegates to The Shard for an event focusing on ‘What Next for Women’s Enterprise Policy? Although there has been a rise in women’s self-employment in recent years, women are still much less likely to found or… Read more

Study on closing the ‘gender entrepreneurship gap’ helping to shape UK policy – GEM UK

Gender entrepreneurship gap to blame for one million ‘missing businesses’ Research, carried out by Global Entreneurship Monitor (GEM) experts based at Aston Business School in Birmingham, has been consulted as part of a government review The GEM research reveals that for every 10 male entrepreneurs in the UK, there are fewer than five female entrepreneurs… Read more

UK Local Growth Dashboard 2019 – Start-ups slump as entrepreneurs brace for Brexit

● Number of new firms being started falls by 13% across the UK – with much sharper declines in many parts of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland ● Firms achieving sustained rapid growth and productivity gains remain a small minority ● ‘Warning signs’ highlight dangers for job creation from ongoing uncertainty around Brexit The number of new… Read more

UK Local Growth Dashboard 2019. Start-ups slump as entrepreneurs brace for Brexit

Number of new firms being started falls by 13% across the UK – with much sharper declines in many parts of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland Firms achieving sustained rapid growth and productivity gains remain a small minority ‘Warning signs’ highlight dangers for job creation from ongoing uncertainty around Brexit The number of new start-ups in the UK… Read more

UK Local Growth Dashboard 2019

The UK Local Growth Dashboard published today has been developed by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) and builds on the LEP Growth Dashboard first launched in June 2014.  Its purpose is to present a set of growth metrics for start-ups and existing firms across a range of sub-national geographies in the UK with a specific… Read more

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

Gig economy “a springboard for entrepreneurs”

• Gig workers in the UK are twice as likely as the wider population to be in the early stages of setting up a business, largest global study of entrepreneurs finds • Sharp fall in entrepreneurship among BAME Britons and immigrants • Rise of crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending sees people increasingly willing to invest in “strangers with… Read more

The Mittelstand v Silicon Valley: Which model of entrepreneurship is most relevant for post-Brexit Britain?

Growth in the UK is slowing down as business investment declines amid Brexit uncertainty. Jobs growth too seems to be slowing particularly in scaling firms. As always, however, the UK’s entrepreneurial small-and-medium firms (SMEs) will play a key role in restoring future growth. But how should we ‘do’ entrepreneurship in the future? A recent research… Read more

Small Business Owner or Entrepreneur and why it matters?

Mark Hart contributed to an article on Forbes.com published today examining the labels used by and to describe business owners. Mark said “Not content with working out whether someone running a business is an entrepreneur or not we have now got a proliferation of labels to describe a particular demographic group the ‘entrepreneur’ is hailing… Read more

GEM UK: Northern Ireland Report 2017

Authored by ERCs Mark Hart , Karen Bonner , Jonathan Levie and Laura Heery  the Northern Ireland element of the annual report, is being launched today, Monday November 12th  at the Entrepreneurship in Action event held at the Marketplace Theatre & Arts Centre, Armagh. In 2017 the Department for the Economy and Invest NI sponsored the Northern Ireland component of the GEM… Read more

Supporting start-ups and local business

Start-ups are crucial to the growth of the UK economy, with nearly 600,000 companies established last year – but support is needed to sustain local businesses beyond the start-up phase. Growth of small business is an important part of driving economic progress and rebalancing the UK economy. The UK now has a larger number of… Read more

Building Better Business Resilience

The ERC held an event at The Shard in London on 5th of July to mark the launch of the first report from the ‘Building Better Business Resilience’ study. The project is  a 2-year European study investigating SME resilience in under-represented communities, which is being supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. There was excellent engagement… Read more

Minorities and immigrants ‘twice as entrepreneurial as white Britons’

• People from ethnic minority backgrounds and immigrants to UK are twice as likely to be early-stage entrepreneurs  • New Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) findings show gap has widened sharply since financial crisis of 2008 • Women, younger people, ethnic minority groups and migrants more likely to be motivated by ‘creating meaning’ as well as making money when… Read more

GEM UK 2017

The launch of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor ( GEM)  2017 takes place today at the NatWest Accelerator Hub in London. The annual global survey is the world’s most authoritative study of entrepreneurial activity and has been running since 1999, Speakers at the launch included Mark Hart, ERC, Aston business School and Jonathan Levie, ERC, Strathcylde… Read more

Micro-business Britain

‘Digital dividend’ productivity boost for UK’s micro firms • Biggest ever study of UK ‘micro-businesses’ (with 1-9 employees) shows big boosts to productivity from use of digital technologies • Doubling adoption could provide a ‘digital dividend’ boost to the economy worth £16.6bn • Research points way to boosting output of group of firms traditionally seen as ‘drag’ on… Read more

‘Micro-business Britain’ Research

The ERC has received some additional funding from the UK Government as a part of a broader £2 million programme of work to support the implementation of the industrial strategy. The programme, which is involving four ESRC-funded research investments, will lead to new insights on business growth, pay, skills and place. The ERC’s contribution will… Read more

Why do some firms survive a crisis and others don’t? Europe-wide study launched to find out

• Europe-wide study by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) to find out what makes small and medium-sized businesses good in a crisis • Researchers from Aston and Warwick business schools to lead the study, supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation 5 February 2018 | Birmingham, UK. An international study of small and medium-sized firms has been launched… Read more

New report reveals immigrants eye for business

New report reveals immigrants eye for business Immigrants are more likely to start their own business than people born and brought up in the UK, according to new figures. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) UK Report, published [12th May], analysed early-stage start-up activity as part of an in-depth study into entrepreneurial trends, attitudes and aspirations… Read more