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
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
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
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
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
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
More than 70% of Britons believe it is easy to start a business in the UK, but less than one in ten has any intention of doing so, a global entrepreneurship survey has found. The 23rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2021/2022 report, unveiled today at the Dubai Expo, measures entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium… Read more
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
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
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
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
Social enterprises could be critical to achieving a more environmentally sustainable business landscape, according to a report published today by The Enterprise Research Centre [ERC] and The Women’s Organisation. State Of The Art (SOTA) Review 53: Social Enterprises and Environmental Sustainability, researched and written by Dr Emma Folmer and Dr Anna Rebmann, emerges as… Read more
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
In the first episode Lee Hopley is joined by Professor Stephen Roper, Director of the ERC, and Professor Mark Hart and Dr Vicki Belt, Deputy Directors at the ERC discussing the ERC’s research into small and medium-sized enterprises, and particularly about what they have found out about how businesses have fared over the past year during… Read more
The world is currently in the grip of a devastating pandemic, COVID-19, which has been causing widespread negative health, social and economic impacts. There is a pressing need for careful, authoritative and evidence-based assessment of the pandemic’s impacts on levels of entrepreneurial activity across the world, as well as on attitudes and ambitions. The new… Read more
Over the past decade, we have seen a historic slowdown in productivity growth. While there is some cause for optimism based on the rapid adoption of tech during the pandemic, boosting productivity should still be the top priority for any government. After all, more than anything else, it is what determines wages and living standards…. Read more
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
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
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
Published today the GEMUK 2019 report sponsored by NatWest shows UK early-stage entrepreneurship hit a new pre-pandemic high in 2019. However, this may be in jeopardy because of the effects of the crisis combined with significant gaps in support for people in the early stages of enterprise formation. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research consortium… Read more
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
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
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
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
Official statistics for 2018 – the most recent data available– suggest that business starts in the UK totalled around 380,000; or, just over 1,000 a day. In reality, this is an estimated figure based on VAT and PAYE records. UK Finance’s data – using bank account numbers – suggests an even higher figure. Nevertheless, it… Read more
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
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
Lack of provision for most vulnerable self-employed in measures announced by the UK Chancellor last week threatens to “decimate a whole generation of early-stage entrepreneurs”, report authors say. More than 750,000 self-employed people in the UK could miss out on Government support during the coronavirus pandemic, a new analysis has shown. The findings from… Read more
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
After a wait that felt like an eternity, self-employed people finally got some clarity yesterday (March 26th) on how the Government intends to support them during the coronavirus pandemic. Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) was more generous than many expected. The headline is that self-employed people will be able to claim… Read more
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
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
London
Latest report by the ERC is the result of a two year, five-country study into small business resilience with a particular focus on firms with female and ethnic minority leaders. The overarching aim of the research was to deliver insight into what makes small businesses resilient and thus more able to survive crises. We also… Read more
Major new study of 2,975 small businesses across five European cities, supported by J.P. Morgan, finds one-third have experienced a threat to their survival in the past five years. Despite this, crisis planning is not widely undertaken by small businesses, which struggle to identify the most potent sources of business disruption Firms run by women… Read more
Newly-elected MPs heading to Westminster, inboxes no doubt groaning with congratulatory messages and policy briefings, have a busy few weeks (and months) ahead. Moving forward with the first stage of getting Brexit done – the EU Withdrawal Bill – will consume much of parliament’s time at the beginning of 2020. But then what? It’s the… Read more
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… Read more
● 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
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
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
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 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
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
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
Coverage in the Times of our new research into SME Resilience – crucial topic for policymakers to ensure businesses can bounce back from adversity.
• New study by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) of 600 London firms finds 48% of businesses run by ethnic minority leaders suffered a major crisis in past five years. • Data on different types of entrepreneur provides basis for new toolkit to help businesses become more resilient to threats. • With Brexit uncertainty continuing, study hopes to… Read more
New study by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) of 600 London firms finds 48% of businesses run by ethnic minority leaders suffered a major crisis in past five years. Data on different types of entrepreneur provides basis for new toolkit to help businesses become more resilient to threats. With Brexit uncertainty continuing, study hopes to… Read more
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
ERC data features in today’s Financial Times special report on the UK’s entrepreneurs: Belfast stands out for start-up productivity. While Belfast still struggles to foster companies that survive for at least three years, this year’s data from the Enterprise Research Centre show that Northern Ireland performs above the UK average in other key metrics… Read more
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
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
Europe-wide study on ‘shock-proof’ firms ahead of Brexit Two-year project will learn lessons from 3,000 of Europe’s most resilient firms to spread best practice Focus on under-represented groups will seek to understand how entrepreneurs overcome barriers With 70% of European jobs in SMEs, study is seen as vital pre-Brexit to cushion economic fallout A new… Read more
• 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
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
‘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
21st June 2018 • Firms in Northern Ireland and parts of the North of England show strong growth and productivity gains in latest annual study of SMEs • Coastal and rural areas display lower numbers of fast-growing firms, leaving them vulnerable to economic shock • Experts warn threat of more complex trading arrangements could undo recent success of… Read more
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
• 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
The impact of migration on the UK jobs market was a major theme of the Brexit debate. The effects of migration, despite their oversimplification in that debate, are, complex. Migrants may have taken jobs that would otherwise have gone to long-term UK residents and as a consequence helped create a climate of distrust in many…