In 2019 the UK Government set the goal of achieving Net Zero – where the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced are equal to or less than the amount removed from the atmosphere – by 2050. This is a commitment that will impact on all businesses, including the more than 5.9 million of firms in… Read more
In some recent work on net zero support for SMEs carried out with the Federation of Small Businesses, we called for a new organisation to be set up called ‘Business England’. One key reason for this was to ensure that there would be a highly visible place for entrepreneurs in England to go to for… Read more
I recently worked on some new groundbreaking research with the ERC examining access to and use of equity finance amongst UK early-stage ventures. This involved the first national survey to explore the process of how potential high growth startup ventures access their first formally reported round of equity finance. The research is important because the… Read more
We know that the vast majority of private sector businesses do not grow, and policymakers are always seeking ways to encourage more firms to take the first steps along the growth path, and to sustain it. As such the emphasis has been on fast-growth, high-growth and scaling as the watch-words of business support policy.Too often… Read more
It has often been suggested that smaller firms – especially more risk averse family-owned firms – may be reluctant to invest in new technologies or innovation. The Evolve Digital scheme, a business support programme for family run businesses, was developed through 2019 to address this issue. Evolve Digital was implemented as a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT)… 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
Mental health issues have received a high profile in recent months, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests that the crisis provoked by the pandemic has led to an inexorable increase in mental ill-health, and that this in turn has implications for productivity and employee wellbeing. Yet research carried out by the ERC indicates… Read more
In episode 5 of the Exploring Enterprise Podcast series ERC Director Professor Stephen Roper is joined by Dr Anastasia Ri, Research Fellow at the ERC; Jonathan Withey, Head of Business Development and Planet Mark; and Catherine Westoby, Senior Policy Adviser, Public Behaviour Change on Net Zero at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy… Read more
On the eve of COP26, attention is firmly focused on the climate challenge and the need for action by governments, big business, and households. Yet there will be no transition to net zero without small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Why would small business leaders adopt net zero practices? Many SMEs are still reluctant to… 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
Media Release issued by the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot Small businesses across the Midlands need urgent help with improving wellbeing in the workplace after a new report showed COVID-19 is now a main factor in causing mental health absences from work. The Mental Health and Productivity Pilot (MHPP) is encouraging businesses to get in touch… 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
Ask anyone working with small business owners and they will tell you great stories of how mentoring and training can transform people and their businesses. Each of these stories is important in its own right. In terms of policy, however, this type of anecdotal evidence is of little value in terms of justifying public investments… 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
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
Business News Wales: Lack of support for workers’ mental health “cuts firm productivity by a quarter” IPSE: IPSE sets out case for more support for self-employed in latest Treasury Committee evidence
Earlier this week a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the vulnerability of different groups of the population to unemployment following the current crisis. Businesses also vary in terms of their crisis planning and resilience, and research has shown that SMEs are less likely to connect risk identification and business planning activities, which… Read more
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
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
Proportion of early-stage entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland grows 75% in 15 years Meanwhile, established micro-businesses employ 20% of people, showing high rates of profitability and exporting Bad Brexit deal could “set the clock back” on enterprise, academics warn Brexit’s risk to recent positive trends among Northern Ireland’s entrepreneurs and micro-firms has been spelt out… Read more
ERC research cited in article by James Hurley in the Times, 10/09/2018 A 2015 study into spin-outs by the Enterprise Research Centre found that for the “majority of academic founders” there were “significant tensions” between their commitments to university academic work and the demands of the embryonic company. Research paper No 35: Profiling UK university spin-outs… Read more
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 study on business resilience in five European countries will draw up… 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
Stephen Roper was recently part of a team working with OECD to advise the government of Abu Dhabi on the development of the entrepreneurial eco-system. The final report from the project has just been published by OECD. Stephen’s involvement in the project focussed on boosting innovative entrepreneurship and SME innovation and stressed the importance of… Read more