Entrepreneurship Policies through a Gender Lens

United Kingdom

By Helen Lawton Smith, Birkbeck, University of London

Tim Vorley, Oxford Brookes University

Background

The United Kingdom (UK) launched a dedicated innovation policy for women in 2016. Innovate UK,1 the UK’s Innovation agency, commissioned research to identify and assess the barriers faced by women in innovative activities, including the reasons why a disproportionately low percentage of women apply for innovation funding. The report identified barriers and made recommendations about how it could help close the gender gap.

Following that report, Innovate UK launched the “Women in Innovation” awards to showcase successful women innovators to help inspire others. In 2017, only 17% of the 2.1 million employees working in the UK’s technology sector were women.2 This is consistent with the general under-representation of women in business creation and entrepreneurship (OECD/EU, 2019). Closing the gender gap in innovation and entrepreneurship represents a huge opportunity to boost the UK economy (Women’s Business Council, 2018).

Key barriers to increasing the number of women engaged in innovation in the UK include a lack of awareness about innovation opportunities, a lack of mentors and champions, and access to finance. Innovation funding plays a crucial role in simulating and supporting innovation, but is often viewed by women innovators as inaccessible and male dominated. It is also often reported that funding competitions are too bureaucratic and time-consuming.

Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation campaign aims to encourage women-led innovation and to help women achieve their business ambitions. The policy forms part of Innovate UK’s commitment to driving sustainable economic growth through an inclusive approach to business-led innovation.

Policy issue: Addressing under-representation of women in innovation

Innovate UK aims to address several policy issues. The core challenge is how to encourage and support the participation of more women, especially given their expressed need for more substantial and focused support. Innovate UK has pursued a programme of positive action to raise awareness of and engagement with women innovators to apply for core Innovate UK funding. Consequently, an initial focus has been to raise the profile of women in innovation.

The Innovate UK initiative is competitive. Awards are given to women with exciting, innovative ideas and ambitious plans. Each award comprises GBP 50 000 funding and a bespoke package of mentoring, coaching and business support. In 2019, nine of the UK’s most innovative women-led businesses were awarded funding and support as part of Innovate UK’s campaign to boost diversity in innovation. Innovate UK also funded an entrepreneurial mission to Boston for seven women in tech areas. This has contributed to an increase in the share of women registrations for support, from 14% to 24%.3 In 2017, the competition was captured through an exhibition and a photography book.

A key issue for Innovate UK is the need to demonstrate additionality associated with investing public money in innovation. Promoting equality through “gender mainstreaming” can be understood as important in shifting the norms of innovation policy, and with it the innovation system.4 Innovate UK is performing an important role in raising the profile of women innovators, and making efforts to overcome the bias and barriers women encounter. However, by itself Innovate UK does not have the capacity to deliver gender equality and requires a wider range of stakeholders to be more active in gender mainstreaming to promote greater diversity and inclusion.

Alongside Innovate UK’s work in championing gender equality, there are a number of businesses and membership organisations that recognise the need to promote and support women in business and innovation. This has resulted in a number of reports including those from the Federation of Small Business, Deloitte and Barclays Bank. However, while communicating the message, these reports fall short of positive action, and there are few actual interventions. One example of where there is direct support is through the organisation Women in Innovation. This organisation provides action-oriented programming, tangible tools and resources, with chapters in New York, London and San Francisco as well as an on-line community. Overall, while there are examples of private sector interest and initiatives, it is still early days for increasing women’s participation in innovation.

Conclusions and recommendations

Innovate UK’s policy of increasing the number of women innovators appears to have had some success by championing the cause of the economic and social needs for more women entrepreneurs and innovators. It has funded over 20 women innovators providing support including mentoring and finance. It has also increased visibility and hence the profile of women innovators as well as opportunities for funding. However, all this is small scale and there needs to be further coordinated action involving other interested organisations. From the UK experience, the following recommendations to policy makers are offered.

Recommendations for the United Kingdom

• Develop and extend communication programmes to put a spotlight on women in innovation to raise the awareness and the profile of innovative women entrepreneurs. This could also include doing more to promote innovative women entrepreneur champions and role models to inspire others.

• Design targeted support programmes for different demographics such as younger and older women innovators, as well as potential women entrepreneurs. These should include coaching, mentoring and training on opportunity awareness, building teams and networks, as well as financial support.

• Provide information and guidance (online) for programme officers who assess programme funding allocations that are not specifically dedicated to women entrepreneurs to ensure that women’s entrepreneurship projects are assessed fairly throughout the process. The guidance should highlight unconscious biases and include the importance of monitoring and reporting key indicators such as the percentage of women-led proposals funded and the percentage of cash value.

References

Barclays Bank (2017), “Untapped Unicorns: Scaling up Female Entrepreneurship”, https://www.home.barclays/content/dam/home-barclays/documents/news/2017/Untapped-Unicorns-Scaling-up-Female-Entrepreneurship-2017.pdf.

Deloitte (2017), “Women Entrepreneurs: Developing Collaborative Ecosystems for Success”, https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/growth/articles/women-entrepreneurs.html.

Federation of Small Businesses (2016), “Women in Enterprise: The Untapped Potential”, https://www.fsb.org.uk/docs/default-source/fsb-org-uk/fsb-women-in-enterprise-the-untapped-potentialfebc2bbb4fa86562a286ff0000dc48fe.pdf?sfvrsn=0.

Innovate UK (2016), “Women in Innovation: Understanding Barriers to Innovation”, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/545202/Women_In_Innovation_Ebiquity_Report_August_2016_FINAL.pdf.

OECD/EU (2019), The Missing Entrepreneurs 2019: Policies for Inclusive Entrepreneurship, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/3ed84801-en.

Women’s Business Council (2018), “Maximising Women’s Contribution to Future Economic Growth Five years on Progress Report 2018”, https://www.womensbusinesscouncil.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/WBC_Five_Years_On_Report_2018.pdf.