Enterprise Research Centre (ERC)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Warwick Business School
Abstract
Past research has largely failed to develop a robust understanding of SME performance. There are three reasons for this: first, there has been a failure to recognise the importance of entrepreneurial ambition and leadership capabilities; second, studies have not acknowledged the variety of ways in which growth occurs and its dependence on firms' operating context; and, third, 'growth' has very often been regarded as a short-term outcome variable rather than part of a dynamic process.
To address these issues our research proposals adopt a dynamic and multi-level approach embracing the entrepreneurial team, the firm and its operating environment. Our proposed research is organised into six work packages (WPs) each with a specified lead researcher. The first three months of each WP will be used to compile a thematic White Paper - a state of the art survey. WPs also have shared milestones at 12, 24 and 36 months linked to the State of Small Business in Britain report and SME Summit.
Three work packages focus on the entrepreneurial leadership team and growth. These are:
WP1: Entrepreneurial Ambition and Growth (Lead: Autio) - research will focus on what shapes entrepreneurial ambition in different contexts, and the interaction between entrepreneurial ambition and other drivers of SME performance. This WP adopts an econometric, multi-level approach and will build on the recently developed Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI) methodology. Analysis will be international and comparative.
WP2: Entrepreneurial Leadership, Capabilities and Growth (Lead: Lockett) - this WP focuses on the factors which influence business owners' growth intentions and capabilities and their influence on growth. How do the mental models entrepreneurs (and their teams) have of their ventures shape their growth intentions? What factors shape these mental models and the capabilities of firms' leadership teams?
WP3: Diversity and SMEs in the Emerging Economy - Individual and Household Influences (Lead: Carter) - this WP builds on the work of the Enterprise and Diversity Alliance (EDA) to understand the barriers to entrepreneurial growth in under-represented groups. A central theme will be the relationships between individuals' household and community setting, ambition and their decisions to finance and grow SMEs. Engagement with the EDA will maximise practical impacts from the research.
Our three other proposed work packages have the SME as the unit of analysis:
WP4: Finance and Growth (Lead: Wright) - this WP will explore the impact of access to finance on growth at different points in firms' development and for different types of firms reflecting both the demand for and supply of SME finance. Research issues will include: the role of finance in explaining firm survival and growth; the relationship between growth and debt finance; borrowers' perceptions of credit supply and issues of discouraged borrowers; the determinants of banks' lending decisions; finance and growth in different types of firms.
WP5: SME Innovation, exporting and growth - An Embedded Perspective (Lead: Love) - this WP will focus on the inter-related barriers and enablers of SME innovation and exporting and their growth implications. Key questions will relate to: the effect of innovation and exporting on growth performance; the key drivers and barriers of SME innovation and exports; the effects of local knowledge, innovation linkages and learning-by-exporting on SME innovation. Analysis will be international and comparative.
WP6: Firm Dynamics, Job Creation and Productivity Growth (Lead: Hart) - this WP focuses on the dynamics of business demography and growth. Which types of firms are responsible for job creation and economic growth? Does the evidence suggest whether SME growth enhances national productivity in the short or longer term? What types of SMEs contribute to job creation and productivity growth?
To address these issues our research proposals adopt a dynamic and multi-level approach embracing the entrepreneurial team, the firm and its operating environment. Our proposed research is organised into six work packages (WPs) each with a specified lead researcher. The first three months of each WP will be used to compile a thematic White Paper - a state of the art survey. WPs also have shared milestones at 12, 24 and 36 months linked to the State of Small Business in Britain report and SME Summit.
Three work packages focus on the entrepreneurial leadership team and growth. These are:
WP1: Entrepreneurial Ambition and Growth (Lead: Autio) - research will focus on what shapes entrepreneurial ambition in different contexts, and the interaction between entrepreneurial ambition and other drivers of SME performance. This WP adopts an econometric, multi-level approach and will build on the recently developed Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI) methodology. Analysis will be international and comparative.
WP2: Entrepreneurial Leadership, Capabilities and Growth (Lead: Lockett) - this WP focuses on the factors which influence business owners' growth intentions and capabilities and their influence on growth. How do the mental models entrepreneurs (and their teams) have of their ventures shape their growth intentions? What factors shape these mental models and the capabilities of firms' leadership teams?
WP3: Diversity and SMEs in the Emerging Economy - Individual and Household Influences (Lead: Carter) - this WP builds on the work of the Enterprise and Diversity Alliance (EDA) to understand the barriers to entrepreneurial growth in under-represented groups. A central theme will be the relationships between individuals' household and community setting, ambition and their decisions to finance and grow SMEs. Engagement with the EDA will maximise practical impacts from the research.
Our three other proposed work packages have the SME as the unit of analysis:
WP4: Finance and Growth (Lead: Wright) - this WP will explore the impact of access to finance on growth at different points in firms' development and for different types of firms reflecting both the demand for and supply of SME finance. Research issues will include: the role of finance in explaining firm survival and growth; the relationship between growth and debt finance; borrowers' perceptions of credit supply and issues of discouraged borrowers; the determinants of banks' lending decisions; finance and growth in different types of firms.
WP5: SME Innovation, exporting and growth - An Embedded Perspective (Lead: Love) - this WP will focus on the inter-related barriers and enablers of SME innovation and exporting and their growth implications. Key questions will relate to: the effect of innovation and exporting on growth performance; the key drivers and barriers of SME innovation and exports; the effects of local knowledge, innovation linkages and learning-by-exporting on SME innovation. Analysis will be international and comparative.
WP6: Firm Dynamics, Job Creation and Productivity Growth (Lead: Hart) - this WP focuses on the dynamics of business demography and growth. Which types of firms are responsible for job creation and economic growth? Does the evidence suggest whether SME growth enhances national productivity in the short or longer term? What types of SMEs contribute to job creation and productivity growth?
Planned Impact
Economic growth is a key UK policy priority. SMEs play a potentially important role in national economic growth both in the short and longer term. The research undertaken by the ERC will provide a more robust, trustworthy and accessible evidence base upon which to make decisions, allocate resources and build effective SME policy.
Our impact proposals aim to establish the ERC (and its on-line presence) as the reference point for SME growth and performance for policy makers, academics, firms and the media. At this point we envisage beneficiaries from the research and other activities of ERC will include:
Policy-makers and those involved in financing and supporting growing SMEs in the UK
Through the Stakeholder Mapping process we aim both to identify the needs of stakeholders but also to seek their input to shaping the ERC research programme. Where possible we will work with stakeholders throughout the funded period to ensure the relevance of the research being undertaken and maximize impact. We see some of the key UK stakeholders in this group being: BIS, regional agencies such as Scottish Enterprise and Invest NI, local business support organisations such as the LEPs and Chambers of Commerce, and more focused business support and advocacy organisations such as the British Bankers Association, British Venture Capital Association, UK Business Angels Association, the CBI, the FSB, the IFB, the IOD, the Institute for Family Business and the Women's Business Council. ERC would seek to work with these organisations on a bilateral basis wherever relevant and inform their activities through:
(a) A Response Group of senior ERC staff who will provide timely input for stakeholders on emerging policy issues and information requests relating to small business growth.
(b) Thematic White Papers, Policy Papers and Research Papers as well as on line and face to face seminars and workshops
(c) An annual State of Small Business in Britain report and associated Summit.
The academic and practice community in the UK and elsewhere
ERC will provide a focal point for the UK SME research community, facilitating networking and maximizing potential synergies in research and knowledge transfer. ERC's work will also be of interest to policy makers internationally and organizations such as the EU, OECD, World Bank and EBRD which contribute to SME policy and support. ERC applicants have pre-existing links to many of these international organizations. Key mechanisms through which we will impact on the academic and practice communities will be:
(a) Working directly with practice and representative groups (e.g. FSB, IFB) to ensure our research informs their strategic thinking and to provide an input into their annual conference and workshop programme.
(b) Academic papers and presentations in leading international journals and conferences
(c) By establishing a broadly based Associates Network of interested academics, firms, policy makers etc.
(d) By establishing a content rich Knowledge Exchange series of thematic Communities of Interest
Media
ERC aims to become the reference point for the UK media in relation to SME growth and performance. Centre staff will also work with the ESRC Press Office to maximise the Centre's public engagement. Publication of Centre White Papers and the State of Small Business in Britain reports will create regular media opportunities. We will also create a searchable Experts Database alongside the Associates Network described earlier.
SMEs
Many ERC staff are directly engaged in business development activities through their teaching activities at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and through mechanisms such as the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Programme, the EDA and the Warwick Business Growth Network. ERC research will contribute directly to inform the content of these and other related business development programmes. Programme alumni will be a source of case studies.
Our impact proposals aim to establish the ERC (and its on-line presence) as the reference point for SME growth and performance for policy makers, academics, firms and the media. At this point we envisage beneficiaries from the research and other activities of ERC will include:
Policy-makers and those involved in financing and supporting growing SMEs in the UK
Through the Stakeholder Mapping process we aim both to identify the needs of stakeholders but also to seek their input to shaping the ERC research programme. Where possible we will work with stakeholders throughout the funded period to ensure the relevance of the research being undertaken and maximize impact. We see some of the key UK stakeholders in this group being: BIS, regional agencies such as Scottish Enterprise and Invest NI, local business support organisations such as the LEPs and Chambers of Commerce, and more focused business support and advocacy organisations such as the British Bankers Association, British Venture Capital Association, UK Business Angels Association, the CBI, the FSB, the IFB, the IOD, the Institute for Family Business and the Women's Business Council. ERC would seek to work with these organisations on a bilateral basis wherever relevant and inform their activities through:
(a) A Response Group of senior ERC staff who will provide timely input for stakeholders on emerging policy issues and information requests relating to small business growth.
(b) Thematic White Papers, Policy Papers and Research Papers as well as on line and face to face seminars and workshops
(c) An annual State of Small Business in Britain report and associated Summit.
The academic and practice community in the UK and elsewhere
ERC will provide a focal point for the UK SME research community, facilitating networking and maximizing potential synergies in research and knowledge transfer. ERC's work will also be of interest to policy makers internationally and organizations such as the EU, OECD, World Bank and EBRD which contribute to SME policy and support. ERC applicants have pre-existing links to many of these international organizations. Key mechanisms through which we will impact on the academic and practice communities will be:
(a) Working directly with practice and representative groups (e.g. FSB, IFB) to ensure our research informs their strategic thinking and to provide an input into their annual conference and workshop programme.
(b) Academic papers and presentations in leading international journals and conferences
(c) By establishing a broadly based Associates Network of interested academics, firms, policy makers etc.
(d) By establishing a content rich Knowledge Exchange series of thematic Communities of Interest
Media
ERC aims to become the reference point for the UK media in relation to SME growth and performance. Centre staff will also work with the ESRC Press Office to maximise the Centre's public engagement. Publication of Centre White Papers and the State of Small Business in Britain reports will create regular media opportunities. We will also create a searchable Experts Database alongside the Associates Network described earlier.
SMEs
Many ERC staff are directly engaged in business development activities through their teaching activities at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and through mechanisms such as the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Programme, the EDA and the Warwick Business Growth Network. ERC research will contribute directly to inform the content of these and other related business development programmes. Programme alumni will be a source of case studies.
Publications
Bernini M
(2016)
Explaining intermittent exporting: Exit and conditional re-entry in export markets
in Journal of International Business Studies
Bernini M
(2016)
Explaining intermittent exporting: Exit and conditional re-entry in export markets
in Journal of International Business Studies
Bhaumik S
(2013)
Erratum to: "A stochastic frontier approach to modelling financial constraints in firms: An application to India" [J. Bank. Finance 36 (2012) 1311-1319]
in Journal of Banking & Finance
Bhaumik S
(2013)
Good and bad institutions: is the debate over? Cross-country firm-level evidence from the textile industry
in Cambridge Journal of Economics
Bhaumik S
(2013)
Does Human Capital Endowment of Foreign Direct Investment Recipient Countries Really Matter? Evidence from Cross-country Firm Level Data
in Review of Development Economics
Bourke J
(2015)
Innovation, quality management and learning: a dynamic analysis
Bourke J
(2016)
AMT adoption and innovation: An investigation of dynamic and complementary effects
in Technovation
Bourke J
(2014)
The influence of experiential learning on medical equipment adoption in general practices.
in Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Bourke J
(2017)
Innovation, quality management and learning: Short-term and longer-term effects
in Research Policy
| Description | 2014-March 2015 Research activities ERC research is divided into six themes each with a Professorial theme lead. Reflecting the geographically dispersed nature of ERC, the theme leads (and their research teams) are spread across the five partner institutions. Each theme has a strong relationship to SME policy and business support and examples of engagement are also provided. A number of these are described in more detail in the 'Major Impacts' section. Ambition and growth This work package analyses the drivers and barriers to growth in SMEs by exploiting existing data on entrepreneurial growth ambition and realised growth. Insufficient research on contextual influences is also a big gap in the understanding of entrepreneurial growth and so empirical work in this theme explores both contextual, firm and individual-level drivers and barriers to entrepreneurial firm growth drawing upon the existing work within the GEDI international project. This research theme is led by Prof Jonathan Levie. Over the last year research has focussed on the determinants of ambition itself using international comparative data and the relationship between ambition and mobility. Entrepreneurial ambition and growth - an international comparison (Project 1.3) has used globally harmonised GEM data to examine direct and cross-level effects of several higher-level influences on high-ambition entrepreneurship and test multi-level theories. Key findings have been : • The quality of institutions exercises a substantial influence on both formal and informal entrepreneurship. One standard deviation increase in the quality of economic and political institutions could double the rates of formal entrepreneurship and halve the rates of informal entrepreneurship. • Peer attitudes significantly influence engagement in entrepreneurship • Entrepreneurs' strategic predisposition, notably 'innovation' and 'internationalization' orientation, are important determinants of their growth aspirations • Owner-manager team size is strongly associated with indicators of potential economic contribution of early-stage and established ventures, including growth ambition. Work on entrepreneurial ambition (Project 1.3) examines the effect of regional, local, peer-group, firm-level, and individual-level factors that influence both the propensity to engage in ambitious entrepreneurship and to achieve rapid realised growth. Use is being made of the UK Global Entrepreneurship Monitor database of around 200,000 individuals, the Business Structure Database (BSD) which contains information on all HMRC registered businesses, and a three year follow-up study of 1,250 UK SMEs. Jonathan Levie and Mark Hart are also analysing the relationship between gender, exporting and ambition across the business cycle. Jonathan Levie and Karen Bonner are analysing data on a 3 year follow-up of ambition and growth among 1,250 UK SMEs: the first time a longitudinal analysis of ambition and realised growth has been conducted in the UK. Results from the analysis of the ambition were presented at the ERC June policy conference with initial results on exporting presented at ISBE in November 2014 . In terms of ambition and mobility in the UK the key questions considered are whether migrants or veteran UK residents more likely to engage in high aspiration entrepreneurship . This then raises the additional question of whether it is ethnicity, mobility or other factors which matter in shaping ambition. Using data from the GEM study it is clear that: • Both immigrants and regional migrants are more likely to be engaged in high ambition entrepreneurship • Human capital dominates other potential influences on migration and ambitious entrepreneurship. • Ethnicity matters for growth ambitions and has an effect which is clearly additional to that of migration. Moving to an area which is rich in human capital enhances the growth aspirations of regional migrants (but has no impact on immigrants). For immigrants it is knowing other entrepreneurs which is important. A project on 'Identifying bottlenecks in UK Systems of Entrepreneurship' was completed in July 2014 (Project 1.4). This project adopted a systemic perspective to the study of contextually embedded entrepreneurial growth processes to identify bottlenecks in regional entrepreneurship ecosystems. Two approaches were followed. The first, in Scotland, combined secondary analysis of data with a stakeholder engagement approach. The second, across all Government Office Regions of the UK, focused on secondary analysis only. Key findings were : • By working collectively Scotland can accelerate the performance of innovation-driven entrepreneurial businesses for the benefit of both society and the Scottish economy • The environment created by the local economic infrastructure, resources and societal attitudes toward entrepreneurship is key to the success of entrepreneurs in a given region • Entrepreneurship in the UK will be given the biggest boost by unlocking an 'aspiration premium' in UK regions outside of London Leadership and growth While business growth is a driver of macroeconomic growth and is thus deemed desirable from a societal point of view, for the entrepreneur, the decision to grow is not necessarily a straightforward one. This research theme addresses two main issues: (i) the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition and growth intentions; and (ii) the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition, growth intentions, and capability creation and development. This research theme is led by Prof Andy Lockett and Professor James Hayton. Based on matched data from 500 SME and related financial information, analysis to date has focussed on the determinants of 'ambidexterity' the ability of firms to combine capabilities associated with exploration and exploitation (Project 2.2). The key research question has been: how do the antecedents of exploration and exploitation capabilities differ? Key results are : • There is strong evidence of the differential drivers of exploration capabilities and exploitation capabilities with potentially conflicting outcomes; • Top management team diversity has opposing effects increasing exploration capabilities but reducing exploitation capabilities; • Vision has a positive effect on exploitation capabilities but a more limited effect on exploration capabilities. • R&D intensity has a positive effect on exploration but a negative effect on exploitation capabilities. • Continuous improvement has positive effects on both areas of capability development. Other work in this theme has focussed on the role of managerial and leadership skills in shaping the strategic behaviour and growth of small companies. This is described in detail in the additional projects section below. Diversity and growth Attempts to increase the participation rates of under-represented groups in enterprise and to increase the growth rates and ambitions of their entrepreneurial ventures have to date resulted in only modest changes. Why is this? This research theme explores the drivers and barriers to business development and growth among diverse social groups with a focus on the inter-relationship between individuals' entrepreneurial decision making and their household context. The activity draws on the innovative Enterprise Diversity Alliance (EDA) to develop productive relationships between the finance sector and businesses from under-represented groups, and enhance the support available for such enterprises. This research theme is led by Prof Sara Carter with Prof Monder Ram, Prof Kiran Trehan and Dr Sam Mwaura. Existing datasets contain important insights on under-represented groups but have yet to be fully analysed. Project 3.2 examines two main datasets: the SME Finance Monitor and the Wealth & Assets Survey, to develop our understanding of diversity and enterprise. Outputs from both elements of this project are now completed . New data collection is being undertaken through a series thirty case studies of business households in Glasgow and Birmingham (Project 3.3). Fieldwork for this commenced in January 2015, with field work completion expected by May 2015. Analysis and findings will be reported in a Research Paper, expected Autumn 2015. This builds on previous work in this area . The final area of activity in the diversity stream is Mapping and Activating Support for Diverse Business Networks through the EDA - An Agenda for Action Research (Project 3.4). This project entails mapping the business support networks of ethnic minority businesses in three UK cities with contrasting demographic profiles in respect of diversity (Birmingham, Glasgow and Norwich). Over the last quarter, the project team have commenced the data collection process. The 20 interviews required for the city of Birmingham have been completed. The interviews for the other 2 cities (Glasgow and Norwich) are currently underway. An initial theoretical paper has been submitted for publication . Finance and Growth Access to finance provides both a potential driver and a barrier to growth for SMEs. This research theme takes as its departure point that insufficient recognition has been given to the notion that different types of finance may be appropriate for different types of SME at different points in time, with different types of growth. The theme is led by Prof Mike Wright with Dr Stuart Fraser. Work on the impact of finance on different measures of growth including sales, employment, value added, etc. (Project 4.2) and the impact of family ownership and board structure continues (Project 4.6) . So far quantitative analysis has focused on examining the drivers of why family firms go into administration compared with non-family firms as well as changes in employment and sales. Qualitative analysis has also examined how finance and governance mechanisms contribute to the ability to grow and growth through different types of innovation . Research on the impact of finance on management buyouts and buyins is also continuing and has examined failure and growth in PE backed buyouts and is also looking at the role of PE backed LBOs in removing financing constraints, especially for buyouts of private firms, to enable them to patent more (Project 4.7). Related work on spin-outs from universities is also continuing but so far the analysis has analysed the influences of internal university aspects on inter alia accessing finance for growth and on differences between spin-outs in the UK, Italy in Norway with respect to the drivers of their ability to access venture capital finance (Project 4.8) . The role of finance in explaining firm survival/growth (financial constraints) - Project 4.3 - examines the causal relationships between finance gaps (resulting, for example, from financial rejection and discouragement) and firm survival/growth. Analysis using UKSMEF data (2004-2009) indicates there were significant financial constraints on survival/growth, especially due to a lack of working capital, following the financial crisis in 2008. Discouragement is also linked with a lower likelihood of survival and firm growth; this is consistent with evidence that businesses tend to over-estimate the likelihood of rejection (resulting in the business being under-capitalised) . Related work on discouragement was published in early 2014 (before the current reporting period) but related work on the group of discouraged non-borrowers continues. The final project in the finance stream relates to implied default risk and the determinants of bank lending decisions - Project 4.5.This project is about providing policy makers with a better understanding of the determinants of bank lending decisions. How is this related to banks' perceptions of default risk? Adopting a structural approach allows the effects of lender risk aversion to be disentangled from the effects of borrower risk on bank lending decisions. The research (which is at an early stage) involves developing a model of the default risk distribution implied by the likelihood of financial rejection. One reason why this model is useful is because it provides an indication of finance providers' risk perceptions and sensitivity to risk (based on actual funding decisions). Initial empirical analysis with the model using UKSMEF data (2004-2009) suggests there was a significant upward shift in the implied default risk distribution following the financial crisis pointing to increased risk perceptions (and explaining around one-half of the increase in the likelihood of rejection following the financial crisis). At the same time there was a tightening of risk thresholds, given risk perceptions, pointing to increased risk aversion (and explaining the other half of the increase in the rejection likelihood). Innovation, exporting and growth A number of studies emphasise a positive link between innovation and business performance, while other studies have stressed synergies between innovation and exports. This work package focuses on the relationships between innovation, exporting and growth in SMEs. Theme lead is Professor Jim Love (Warwick). Research during 2014 and 2015 aims to link knowledge acquisition and generation by firms to their innovation and value creation. The initial step is to explore how knowledge from different sources influences innovation and exporting in SMEs (Project 5.2). How do ambient local knowledge, innovation linkages and learning-by-exporting contribute to innovation in SMEs? Key findings are : • There is strong and consistent support for complementarity between non-interactive and interactive knowledge connections across firms in all sectors and size-bands. • Both interactive and non-interactive search have positive effects on innovation, with stronger effects for SMEs than large firms. • Other elements of the 'innovation eco-system' have little effect on innovation in SMEs i.e. there is little disadvantage in being in an area with little knowledge 'richness'. What are the key drivers and barriers of enhanced innovation and exports in SMEs? (Project 5.3) What factors influence SME's ability to successfully exploit new innovations in export markets? Key findings for UK SMEs: • Innovation is a key attribute differentiating 'intermittent' and 'persistent' SME exporters. • Previous international experience, innovation and exporting early in the lifecycle are both positively associated with breadth of export markets for SMEs. Work is also underway in association with Bettina Becker (Aston) to develop a comparative analysis of the determinants of innovation in the UK and Spain - economies which have very different levels of regulation . Business demography and growth This research theme focuses on the dynamics of business demography. The central focus is to build understanding of the growth rate distribution of UK businesses and which types of firms are responsible for job creation and economic growth. This theme is led by Professor Mark Hart with support from Michael Anyadike-Danes. There are a number of elements to the on-going work on firm dynamics and job creation (Project 6.2): 1. UK work leading focusing on the importance of age rather than size in understanding the process of job creation 2. Work on the LEP network in England which has led to collaborative work with Grant Thornton/Growth Accelerator and the publication of the LEP Growth Dashboard in June 2014. Further work for the BBIS Local Growth team on more LEP enterprise metrics (August 2014). 3. International comparative cohort work on the size effects on job growth. 4. Up-dating the job creation and destruction analysis for the UK incorporating 2014 data - completed January 2015. Related outputs include both ERC papers and forthcoming journal papers . Other aspects of the work on business demographics include participation in the OECD Dynemp V2 project by Michael Anyadike-Danes and a focus on the r0ole of policies on explaining international differences in the degree to which small start-ups are able to upscale if successful; the number of firms that experience fast employment growth; the shape of the employment growth distribution; the volatility of employment growth over time of comparable groups of firms; the 'secular decline in entrepreneurship and churning rates; the resilience of firms to the 'Great Recession' of 2008; and, the contribution of high-tech firms to employment growth. Allied to this is the on-going development of the linked longitudinal database based on ONS population and business surveys which now incorporates data from a range of government business support schemes in three broad categories - business advice; exporting and innovation (Project 6.3). Research on SME productivity also continues to identify the contributions of different types of heterogeneous firms to aggregate labour productivity growth (ALPG). ALPG decompositions - into average productivity growth, resource allocation, dynamic components: survivors, entrants and exits - will also be explored (Project 6.4). The objective is to profile and create a typology of UK firms' productivity changes and to investigate the ALPG contributions of heterogeneous firms as well as the role of firm size and age. Additional Projects Three additional projects commissioned prior to March 2013 continued into this period of activity. These were: Management & Leadership Skills/Practices in SMEs (August 2013 to February 2015, BIS, £106k) This project is being led by Prof James Hayton with support from Prof Andy Lockett and Prof Deniz Ucbasaran. The aims of the project were to expand knowledge of the nature and extent of deficiencies in leadership and management skills amongst UK SMEs with the ultimate objective being to develop a systematic approach for measuring leadership and management skills in SMEs and if possible, explore and develop a composite measure of management and leadership skills that can be used in further analysis. Results from this project were published as Hayton, J (2015) 'Leadership and management skills in SMEs: measuring associations with management practices and performance', BIS research paper No. 211. March 2015. Entrepreneurial Leadership - PhD Studentship (Oct 2013-Sept 2016, £54k) This new three-year PhD studentship funding Elini Kesidou focuses on entrepreneurial leadership and the connections between entrepreneurial leadership and organizational performance. The lead supervisor is Professor Sara Carter. The studentship is co-funded by Scottish Enterprise and the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde Business School. This PhD studentship will focus on high growth companies in Scotland in order to gain a greater understanding of: the characteristics of leadership; whether developed leadership skills have an effect on company performance; the type of business support received from public agencies; and whether and in what ways business support helps business performance. The Rewards of Entrepreneurship - Constructing Economic Wellbeing within Entrepreneurial Households - PhD Studentship (Oct 2013-Sept 2016, £54k) This new three-year PhD studentship funding Johan de Borst focuses on a household perspective on the rewards to entrepreneurship. The studentship is being funded by Strathclyde Business School and the lead supervisor is Professor Sara Carter with Professor Jonathan Levie. The studentship will extend work in Theme 3 (Diversity) by exploring how entrepreneurial households construct economic wellbeing despite uncertain and irregular rewards, and will link with Theme 1 (Ambition) by exploring the potential impact of entrepreneurial households in their support or curtailment of business growth ambitions. Four other additional commissioned projects commenced during the current period. These were: Sociology of Enterprise - April 2014 to Feb 2015 This project for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) undertakes a critical analysis of how institutional factors and the wider political and historical contexts shape entrepreneurial disposition (growth-orientation) and small business management. This qualitative research project, under the direction of Prof Mark Hart, will include researchers from Aston Business School, Policy Research Group (Durham University) and Dr Sally Jones (Leeds University) and will involve 100 face-to-face interviews. Led by Mark Hart on behalf of BIS - interviews with 100 SME business owners are scheduled to complete at the beginning of February. Preliminary findings were presented at the BIS Small Business Research Conference on 3rd March. Nation of Angels - Business angels project - July 2014-January 2015 Led by Mark Hart and Mike Wright this project was undertaken for the UK Business Angels Association and the Centre for Entrepreneurs. Qualitative interviewing and the UKs largest a survey of business angels provided information on the scale and success factors of UK business angel investments. The final report for this project was presented at the UKBAA's Winter Forum end January 2015 (http://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ERC-Angels-Reportpdf). SME-university interaction (January to April 2015) Led by Stephen Roper and Karen Bonner (working with Nola Hewitt-Dundas, Queens) this project is being funded by HEFCE. It will provide a profile of SMEs in local areas in England. The aim is to provide an information resource for higher education institutions about the potential for developing links with local SMEs and the types of demands for services which might exist. Initial results from this project are due to be published by HEFCE in April/May 2015. Innovation in legal services (September to April 2015) Led by Stephen Roper and Jim Love this project is being undertaken for the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Services Board. Almost nothing is known about innovation in this sector and so the project aims to explore the extent and nature of innovation activity in Legal Services. Publications: Between March 2014 and March 2015 ERC published 12 additional research papers intended for an academic audience (Annex A). 40research papers were also published in leading management and entrepreneurship journals including Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Research Policy, Small Business Economics, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management, and the International Journal of Small Business (Annex B). Many of these papers were in collaboration with ERC Research Associates. ERC were represented at most of the major national and international entrepreneurship and management conferences and contributed significantly to the ISBE conference in Manchester in November 2014. ERC staff presented a number of papers at the conference with the paper by Alex Kevill, Kiran Trehan and Mark Easterby-Smith 'Gazing at my Reflection: Owner-Managerial Self-Concept and Dynamic Capabilities' winning a best paper in its track. The paper by Michael Anyadike-Danes and Mark Hart 'All Grown Up? The Fate after 15 years of the Quarter of a Million UK Firms Born in 1998' was also nominated for a track prize. ERC staff (Roper, Mole) also chaired a track at ISBE and Prof Stephen Roper also chaired a conference track on 'Business Growth and Policy' which focused on SME growth and growth-oriented SME policy and presented a masterclass on 'Impact by design'. ERC also held its first policy and research conferences during this period. The policy conference on the 'State of Small Business Britain' was held in Liverpool during June as part of the International Festival of Business and attracted a largely policy related audience of around 120 people. Presentations and video material focused on an attractive presentation of ERC research around high growth, exporting and finance and were mixed with live case studies from high growth business owners and panel discussions. A departure in both style and content for ERC, feedback from the conference was very positive and it is planned to repeat the event in June 2015 in Birmingham. Video material produced for the conference has been used extensively (for example at each of the LEP workshops) since the event and has proved a very worthwhile investment. ERC's first research conference - 'Understanding small business growth' - was held in Birmingham in February 2015 and attracted an audience of academics and largely public sector analysts. Presentations from each of the ERC research themes were accompanied by presentations from leading international scholars and l UK scholars in related areas. Feedback from the event was again very positive with an appreciation both of the quality of the ERC research being showcased as well as the quality of the group of international visitors. Presentations from the event are all available on the ERC website at: http://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/understanding-small-business-growth-2015. March to July 2015 Key ERC publications during this period included the 'Growth Dashboard for 2015' which again highlighted the complexity of the business growth profile of England and the 'Innovation Geography' report which provide the first overview of which UK localities are most innovative. ERC has published five new research papers since March 2015. • In 'Does Entrepreneurship make you wealthy?' Sara Carter and Samuel Mwaura examine whether being an entrepreneur is always beneficial in terms of wealth. Their analysis suggests the answer is a definite 'maybe'. If you start from one of the upper deciles of the income distribution then entrepreneurship will significantly enhance your wealth; if you start in the lowest deciles however the results are less positive. The research findings cast doubt on the value of entrepreneurship as a response to social deprivation or inequality. • A paper by Mike Wright and Helmut Fryges provides a new perspective on university spin-out companies, suggesting an interesting new typology. The paper, developed as part of a collection of papers on spin-outs, provides an introduction to this research area and develops an agenda for further research. • Exporting is the focus of a third research paper: 'Experience, age and exporting performance in UK SMEs'. This paper emphasises the positive exporting effects which result from 'grafted knowledge' - acquired by the recruitment of management with prior international experience. Innovation also has positive exporting effects with more radical new-to-the-industry innovation most strongly linked to inter-regional exports; new-to-the-firm innovation is more strongly linked to intra-regional trade. Early internationalisation is also linked positively to the number of countries to which firms export and the intensity of their export activity. There is no evidence, however, relating early internationalisation to extra-regional exporting providing further evidence that firms tend be 'born regional' rather than 'born global'. • The first (RP 27) links firms' innovation objectives to their innovation strategies while two more recent papers relate innovation to other aspects of organisational and managerial change. Quality improvement methods are shown to generate significant short-term disruption but longer-term beneficial innovation effects (RP 30). Advanced manufacturing technologies - e.g. robotics, CIM - generate similar effects (RP 31). • Finally, in March 2015 we also published a feasibility study examining the longer-term effects of Business Link support to SMEs in 2003 (RP 30). Based on matched survey and longitudinal data the project emphasises the value of longitudinal data in evaluation. August to October 2015 Growth dispositions exposed This commissioned project undertaken for BIS. The study uses perspectives from social theory to examine the dispositions of entrepreneurs towards growth. The findings show that there is a spectrum of dispositions towards growth among small business owners and these are influenced by demographics (gender, socio-economic status, etc.), family background, education, cultural norms and the scale and nature of international links. Within the spectrum, there are 3 broad identifiable categories of business owners: the growth-inclined, growth-ambivalent and growth-resistant. Businesses run by growth-inclined owners tend to perform better than those run by growth-ambivalent, and these in turn perform better than businesses run by growth-resistant owners. The results have implications for the targeting and design of business support services. The drivers of productivity Research provides new insight into the relationship between growth and productivity in UK firms. It also emphasises the sources of the UK productivity puzzle and the weakness of productivity growth among the UK's existing firms. A key finding from the report is the identification of a group of firms - the growth heroes - who achieve both scale-up and productivity growth. These 4-5 per cent of firms are responsible for around a fifth of all productivity increase in the UK. Initial results from this study have been presented as part of a productivity workshop at Aston and more recently at a UKCES Productivity Masterclass. Profiling UK spin-outs ERC has recently published the results of a comprehensive survey of UK university spin-out (USOs) businesses. The study covers how these businesses were formed, the financial and business support received, the business models they pursue, characteristics of the founding teams, intellectual property strategies etc. Illustrative findings are: • On average there is a two year time lag between development of the technology on which the business is based and the spin-out being formed. For a third of USOs this time lag is shorter at just under a year between technology development and commercialisation. • A fifth of USOs develop technology that they then seek to further develop and commercialise in collaboration with other organisations, typically incumbent businesses. Only 14 per cent of USOs were engaged solely in providing consultancy or contract research activities. • The average USO generates £190,000 in sales and as might be expected, older businesses have higher levels of sales. A significant share (almost a third) of USOs were not generating revenue at the time of our survey. These are not newly established businesses, as might be anticipated, but rather businesses that have existed for on average of 7 years, and are focused on selling their technology. • USOs are generating around half of their revenue from non-UK markets. This share is higher for Northern Ireland and Scottish USOs with no significant relationship found between the USO age and the share of sales to export (non-UK) markets. • On average USOs employ 4 highly educated employees, with almost all (93 per cent) having a degree level qualification or higher. Employment growth in USOs is very mixed with gains in some being counteracted by losses in others since 2011. There is no straight-forward explanation for this with sales growth/losses not related to the age of the USO, the business model adopted or share of export sales. • The majority of USOs have a founding team typically comprising 3 individuals, with only 12.5 per cent being established by only one founder. • Average investment varies significantly according to the business model of the USO. Consultancy based USOs require the lowest level of financial investment at c. £0.8m. This contrasts with USOs formed to develop technology with a view to alliances with other businesses, where average investment was £3.9m. Grafting knowledge for SME exporting SMEs and particularly small firms often cite a lack of market knowledge as a barrier to entering export markets and as a barrier to more persistent exporting. Recent ERC analysis of UKTI survey data has examined the determinants of SME exporting. This makes clear the role of a firm's age and its international experience in terms of export reach but also highlights the potential value of 'grafted knowledge' through the recruitment of managers with prior international experience. A number of factors are linked to SMEs' exporting reach (i.e. the number of countries to which they export) and intensity: • International experience has positive effects on export reach and intensity. Firm age has negative effects. • Innovation also has positive exporting effects with more radical new-to-the-industry innovation most strongly linked to inter-regional exports; new-to-the-firm innovation is more strongly linked to intra-regional trade. • Early internationalisation is also linked positively to the number of countries to which firms export and the intensity of their export activity Positive exporting effects also result from grafted knowledge - acquired by the recruitment of management with prior international experience. Specifically, having managers with prior international experience increases firms' probability of exporting to 6-10 countries by 4.15 per cent, the probability of exporting to four global regions by 2.38 per cent, and of earning 16-25 per cent of sales from exports by 2.86 per cent. The implication is that grafted knowledge can be an important supplement to firms' experience in shaping the extent and intensity of firms' export activity. This suggests the potential value of 'export mentoring' and advisory services to support new exporters and firms during the early years of their exporting journey. Family ownership and innovation in micro-firms Schumpeterian arguments related to creative destruction place small, entrepreneurial firms at the centre of the innovation process. The exclusion of micro-enterprises (with less than 10 employees) from most innovation surveys means that we know relatively little about innovation among this group of firms. Our analysis suggests - rather unexpectedly - that family owned firms are more likely than other small firms to introduce new to the market innovations. New ERC research explores the determinants of new-to-the-market innovation, the basis for the Schumpeterian creative destruction process in micro-firms using new survey data for 1,000 UK micro-firms. The results suggest: • Strong support for the interactive nature of micro-enterprise innovation and suggest the value of open innovation for this group of firms; • Firms internal resources such as skills, R&D investment and policy support also prove important; Our results also suggest that family-owned firms are more likely to introduce new-to-the-market innovations. Specifically, family owned firms are 8 per cent more likely to introduce new to the market innovations than comparable firms which are not family owned. It is widely recognised that family businesses face rather particular issues in their growth and development. Our research suggests that helping these firms overcome these issues may have significant and unanticipated benefits in terms of innovation. November 2015 to January 2016 Unlocking UK productivity - internationalisation and innovation in SMEs Published jointly with Goldman Sachs and the British Business Bank this report provides an overview of the UK productivity challenge and the role of SMEs in addressing this challenge. It provides an integrated summary of some of the key elements of ERC research over the last three years pulling together the evidence on high growth in the UK and the importance of innovation and early internationalisation. Written by Mark Hart, the report was widely covered in the UK press. Profiling job growth in 2015 New analysis of job creation in 2015 was published by ERC in December based on work by Mark Hart, Karen Bonner and Michael Anyadike-Danes. Based on data provided by the ONS and made available through the Secure Data Service, the analysis was covered in the Financial Times and the BBC Today programme and picked up by a number of other media outlets as well as Le Monde in France (their equivalent of the Economist). The analysis showed that companies that employ staff added nearly 700,000 net new jobs across the UK in 2014-15 - the highest number recorded in the last two decades. ERC at ISBE ERC researchers contributed 9 papers to the ISBE conference held in held at the Technology & Innovation Centre, Glasgow of which eight were nominated in their track for Best Paper. Promoting data access Robust analysis requires high quality data and one of the Enterprise Research Centre's goals is to enable better exploitation of existing data on SMEs and support the development of new data sources. Much ERC analysis is based on firm-level micro-data accessed via a team project on the UK Data Service's Secure Lab. Over the last couple of months we have taken some steps to encourage broader use of some of the ERC's key data resources and promote a new data source (the Longitudinal Small Business Survey). 2017 Key Findings Measuring the spillovers from publicly funded R&D activity Much of the argument for publicly funding R&D activity either in universities or companies rests on the assertion that the knowledge created is a public or quasi-public good, i.e. it has the potential to generate benefits for society at large. Big investments in public R&D in a particular locality may, for example, generate clustering effects attracting other firms to co-locate. Knowledge or innovation stimulated by publicly funded R&D may stimulate new business and generate positive multiplier or supply chain benefits. This suggests the potential for two types of spillover impacts - on innovation and local growth. We know from current ERC research that publicly funded R&D activity has a positive impact on business growth. Here, we use matched data from the Gateway to Research (GtR) database and UK Innovation Survey to explore growth and innovation spillovers. The UK Innovation Survey provides detailed data on the internal factors which shape firms' innovation outputs while the Business Structure Database provides details on local growth. GtR provides comprehensive data on public R&D spending which we can categorise by locality and broad sector. Linking the two datasets will allow us to assess the (direct) contribution of public funding to the innovation activity of UKIS recipients and assess any (indirect) spillover effects. The central question is whether firms which are in industries or localities which receive high levels of public support are more innovative than they would have been without that public support? In what industries or areas are these spillovers strongest? The results will be relevant to current thinking about the IS and questions about the allocation of IS Challenge Fund resources between industries. Accessing and using alternative finance The landscape of alternative finance has changed rapidly as both equity and debt crowd-funding platforms have matured. This project aims to contrast the growth impacts of two forms of external support for companies- alternative finance and accelerators. The former provides finance but little direct support, the latter provides limited finance but considerable mentoring and network support. We propose to use data from the UK SME Finance Monitor matched to the Business Structure Database to consider which types of firms are using crowdfunding and the impacts on subsequent performance alongside other sources of funding. Synergies between crowdfunding and other sources of revenue will be explored with a clear differentiation between equity and debt platforms. Other datasets on alternative finance are currently being explored (e.g., Funding Circle with ~30,000 observations). Leadership and management in small firms - an activity based perspective Leadership and its relationship to management practices are central to productivity, with the 'long-tail' of lower productivity firms in the UK having been a persistent feature of the UK landscape. Recent data on management practices by UK firms from the ONS does suggest some variation in practices across firms but this is only part of the story. Firm leadership is critical and our objective here is to consider how leadership and management practices work together in shaping performance. We aim to base our analysis on ERC data previously collected for a BEIS research project on management practices matched with BSD to give a longitudinal indication of performance outcomes. 2014-March 2015 Research activities ERC research is divided into six themes each with a Professorial theme lead. Reflecting the geographically dispersed nature of ERC, the theme leads (and their research teams) are spread across the five partner institutions. Each theme has a strong relationship to SME policy and business support and examples of engagement are also provided. A number of these are described in more detail in the 'Major Impacts' section. Ambition and growth This work package analyses the drivers and barriers to growth in SMEs by exploiting existing data on entrepreneurial growth ambition and realised growth. Insufficient research on contextual influences is also a big gap in the understanding of entrepreneurial growth and so empirical work in this theme explores both contextual, firm and individual-level drivers and barriers to entrepreneurial firm growth drawing upon the existing work within the GEDI international project. This research theme is led by Prof Jonathan Levie. Over the last year research has focussed on the determinants of ambition itself using international comparative data and the relationship between ambition and mobility. Entrepreneurial ambition and growth - an international comparison (Project 1.3) has used globally harmonised GEM data to examine direct and cross-level effects of several higher-level influences on high-ambition entrepreneurship and test multi-level theories. Key findings have been : • The quality of institutions exercises a substantial influence on both formal and informal entrepreneurship. One standard deviation increase in the quality of economic and political institutions could double the rates of formal entrepreneurship and halve the rates of informal entrepreneurship. • Peer attitudes significantly influence engagement in entrepreneurship • Entrepreneurs' strategic predisposition, notably 'innovation' and 'internationalization' orientation, are important determinants of their growth aspirations • Owner-manager team size is strongly associated with indicators of potential economic contribution of early-stage and established ventures, including growth ambition. Work on entrepreneurial ambition (Project 1.3) examines the effect of regional, local, peer-group, firm-level, and individual-level factors that influence both the propensity to engage in ambitious entrepreneurship and to achieve rapid realised growth. Use is being made of the UK Global Entrepreneurship Monitor database of around 200,000 individuals, the Business Structure Database (BSD) which contains information on all HMRC registered businesses, and a three year follow-up study of 1,250 UK SMEs. Jonathan Levie and Mark Hart are also analysing the relationship between gender, exporting and ambition across the business cycle. Jonathan Levie and Karen Bonner are analysing data on a 3 year follow-up of ambition and growth among 1,250 UK SMEs: the first time a longitudinal analysis of ambition and realised growth has been conducted in the UK. Results from the analysis of the ambition were presented at the ERC June policy conference with initial results on exporting presented at ISBE in November 2014 . In terms of ambition and mobility in the UK the key questions considered are whether migrants or veteran UK residents more likely to engage in high aspiration entrepreneurship . This then raises the additional question of whether it is ethnicity, mobility or other factors which matter in shaping ambition. Using data from the GEM study it is clear that: • Both immigrants and regional migrants are more likely to be engaged in high ambition entrepreneurship • Human capital dominates other potential influences on migration and ambitious entrepreneurship. • Ethnicity matters for growth ambitions and has an effect which is clearly additional to that of migration. Moving to an area which is rich in human capital enhances the growth aspirations of regional migrants (but has no impact on immigrants). For immigrants it is knowing other entrepreneurs which is important. A project on 'Identifying bottlenecks in UK Systems of Entrepreneurship' was completed in July 2014 (Project 1.4). This project adopted a systemic perspective to the study of contextually embedded entrepreneurial growth processes to identify bottlenecks in regional entrepreneurship ecosystems. Two approaches were followed. The first, in Scotland, combined secondary analysis of data with a stakeholder engagement approach. The second, across all Government Office Regions of the UK, focused on secondary analysis only. Key findings were : • By working collectively Scotland can accelerate the performance of innovation-driven entrepreneurial businesses for the benefit of both society and the Scottish economy • The environment created by the local economic infrastructure, resources and societal attitudes toward entrepreneurship is key to the success of entrepreneurs in a given region • Entrepreneurship in the UK will be given the biggest boost by unlocking an 'aspiration premium' in UK regions outside of London Leadership and growth While business growth is a driver of macroeconomic growth and is thus deemed desirable from a societal point of view, for the entrepreneur, the decision to grow is not necessarily a straightforward one. This research theme addresses two main issues: (i) the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition and growth intentions; and (ii) the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition, growth intentions, and capability creation and development. This research theme is led by Prof Andy Lockett and Professor James Hayton. Based on matched data from 500 SME and related financial information, analysis to date has focussed on the determinants of 'ambidexterity' the ability of firms to combine capabilities associated with exploration and exploitation (Project 2.2). The key research question has been: how do the antecedents of exploration and exploitation capabilities differ? Key results are : • There is strong evidence of the differential drivers of exploration capabilities and exploitation capabilities with potentially conflicting outcomes; • Top management team diversity has opposing effects increasing exploration capabilities but reducing exploitation capabilities; • Vision has a positive effect on exploitation capabilities but a more limited effect on exploration capabilities. • R&D intensity has a positive effect on exploration but a negative effect on exploitation capabilities. • Continuous improvement has positive effects on both areas of capability development. Other work in this theme has focussed on the role of managerial and leadership skills in shaping the strategic behaviour and growth of small companies. This is described in detail in the additional projects section below. Diversity and growth Attempts to increase the participation rates of under-represented groups in enterprise and to increase the growth rates and ambitions of their entrepreneurial ventures have to date resulted in only modest changes. Why is this? This research theme explores the drivers and barriers to business development and growth among diverse social groups with a focus on the inter-relationship between individuals' entrepreneurial decision making and their household context. The activity draws on the innovative Enterprise Diversity Alliance (EDA) to develop productive relationships between the finance sector and businesses from under-represented groups, and enhance the support available for such enterprises. This research theme is led by Prof Sara Carter with Prof Monder Ram, Prof Kiran Trehan and Dr Sam Mwaura. Existing datasets contain important insights on under-represented groups but have yet to be fully analysed. Project 3.2 examines two main datasets: the SME Finance Monitor and the Wealth & Assets Survey, to develop our understanding of diversity and enterprise. Outputs from both elements of this project are now completed . New data collection is being undertaken through a series thirty case studies of business households in Glasgow and Birmingham (Project 3.3). Fieldwork for this commenced in January 2015, with field work completion expected by May 2015. Analysis and findings will be reported in a Research Paper, expected Autumn 2015. This builds on previous work in this area . The final area of activity in the diversity stream is Mapping and Activating Support for Diverse Business Networks through the EDA - An Agenda for Action Research (Project 3.4). This project entails mapping the business support networks of ethnic minority businesses in three UK cities with contrasting demographic profiles in respect of diversity (Birmingham, Glasgow and Norwich). Over the last quarter, the project team have commenced the data collection process. The 20 interviews required for the city of Birmingham have been completed. The interviews for the other 2 cities (Glasgow and Norwich) are currently underway. An initial theoretical paper has been submitted for publication . Finance and Growth Access to finance provides both a potential driver and a barrier to growth for SMEs. This research theme takes as its departure point that insufficient recognition has been given to the notion that different types of finance may be appropriate for different types of SME at different points in time, with different types of growth. The theme is led by Prof Mike Wright with Dr Stuart Fraser. Work on the impact of finance on different measures of growth including sales, employment, value added, etc. (Project 4.2) and the impact of family ownership and board structure continues (Project 4.6) . So far quantitative analysis has focused on examining the drivers of why family firms go into administration compared with non-family firms as well as changes in employment and sales. Qualitative analysis has also examined how finance and governance mechanisms contribute to the ability to grow and growth through different types of innovation . Research on the impact of finance on management buyouts and buyins is also continuing and has examined failure and growth in PE backed buyouts and is also looking at the role of PE backed LBOs in removing financing constraints, especially for buyouts of private firms, to enable them to patent more (Project 4.7). Related work on spin-outs from universities is also continuing but so far the analysis has analysed the influences of internal university aspects on inter alia accessing finance for growth and on differences between spin-outs in the UK, Italy in Norway with respect to the drivers of their ability to access venture capital finance (Project 4.8) . The role of finance in explaining firm survival/growth (financial constraints) - Project 4.3 - examines the causal relationships between finance gaps (resulting, for example, from financial rejection and discouragement) and firm survival/growth. Analysis using UKSMEF data (2004-2009) indicates there were significant financial constraints on survival/growth, especially due to a lack of working capital, following the financial crisis in 2008. Discouragement is also linked with a lower likelihood of survival and firm growth; this is consistent with evidence that businesses tend to over-estimate the likelihood of rejection (resulting in the business being under-capitalised) . Related work on discouragement was published in early 2014 (before the current reporting period) but related work on the group of discouraged non-borrowers continues. The final project in the finance stream relates to implied default risk and the determinants of bank lending decisions - Project 4.5.This project is about providing policy makers with a better understanding of the determinants of bank lending decisions. How is this related to banks' perceptions of default risk? Adopting a structural approach allows the effects of lender risk aversion to be disentangled from the effects of borrower risk on bank lending decisions. The research (which is at an early stage) involves developing a model of the default risk distribution implied by the likelihood of financial rejection. One reason why this model is useful is because it provides an indication of finance providers' risk perceptions and sensitivity to risk (based on actual funding decisions). Initial empirical analysis with the model using UKSMEF data (2004-2009) suggests there was a significant upward shift in the implied default risk distribution following the financial crisis pointing to increased risk perceptions (and explaining around one-half of the increase in the likelihood of rejection following the financial crisis). At the same time there was a tightening of risk thresholds, given risk perceptions, pointing to increased risk aversion (and explaining the other half of the increase in the rejection likelihood). Innovation, exporting and growth A number of studies emphasise a positive link between innovation and business performance, while other studies have stressed synergies between innovation and exports. This work package focuses on the relationships between innovation, exporting and growth in SMEs. Theme lead is Professor Jim Love (Warwick). Research during 2014 and 2015 aims to link knowledge acquisition and generation by firms to their innovation and value creation. The initial step is to explore how knowledge from different sources influences innovation and exporting in SMEs (Project 5.2). How do ambient local knowledge, innovation linkages and learning-by-exporting contribute to innovation in SMEs? Key findings are : • There is strong and consistent support for complementarity between non-interactive and interactive knowledge connections across firms in all sectors and size-bands. • Both interactive and non-interactive search have positive effects on innovation, with stronger effects for SMEs than large firms. • Other elements of the 'innovation eco-system' have little effect on innovation in SMEs i.e. there is little disadvantage in being in an area with little knowledge 'richness'. What are the key drivers and barriers of enhanced innovation and exports in SMEs? (Project 5.3) What factors influence SME's ability to successfully exploit new innovations in export markets? Key findings for UK SMEs: • Innovation is a key attribute differentiating 'intermittent' and 'persistent' SME exporters. • Previous international experience, innovation and exporting early in the lifecycle are both positively associated with breadth of export markets for SMEs. Work is also underway in association with Bettina Becker (Aston) to develop a comparative analysis of the determinants of innovation in the UK and Spain - economies which have very different levels of regulation . Business demography and growth This research theme focuses on the dynamics of business demography. The central focus is to build understanding of the growth rate distribution of UK businesses and which types of firms are responsible for job creation and economic growth. This theme is led by Professor Mark Hart with support from Michael Anyadike-Danes. There are a number of elements to the on-going work on firm dynamics and job creation (Project 6.2): 1. UK work leading focusing on the importance of age rather than size in understanding the process of job creation 2. Work on the LEP network in England which has led to collaborative work with Grant Thornton/Growth Accelerator and the publication of the LEP Growth Dashboard in June 2014. Further work for the BBIS Local Growth team on more LEP enterprise metrics (August 2014). 3. International comparative cohort work on the size effects on job growth. 4. Up-dating the job creation and destruction analysis for the UK incorporating 2014 data - completed January 2015. Related outputs include both ERC papers and forthcoming journal papers . Other aspects of the work on business demographics include participation in the OECD Dynemp V2 project by Michael Anyadike-Danes and a focus on the r0ole of policies on explaining international differences in the degree to which small start-ups are able to upscale if successful; the number of firms that experience fast employment growth; the shape of the employment growth distribution; the volatility of employment growth over time of comparable groups of firms; the 'secular decline in entrepreneurship and churning rates; the resilience of firms to the 'Great Recession' of 2008; and, the contribution of high-tech firms to employment growth. Allied to this is the on-going development of the linked longitudinal database based on ONS population and business surveys which now incorporates data from a range of government business support schemes in three broad categories - business advice; exporting and innovation (Project 6.3). Research on SME productivity also continues to identify the contributions of different types of heterogeneous firms to aggregate labour productivity growth (ALPG). ALPG decompositions - into average productivity growth, resource allocation, dynamic components: survivors, entrants and exits - will also be explored (Project 6.4). The objective is to profile and create a typology of UK firms' productivity changes and to investigate the ALPG contributions of heterogeneous firms as well as the role of firm size and age. Additional Projects Three additional projects commissioned prior to March 2013 continued into this period of activity. These were: Management & Leadership Skills/Practices in SMEs (August 2013 to February 2015, BIS, £106k) This project is being led by Prof James Hayton with support from Prof Andy Lockett and Prof Deniz Ucbasaran. The aims of the project were to expand knowledge of the nature and extent of deficiencies in leadership and management skills amongst UK SMEs with the ultimate objective being to develop a systematic approach for measuring leadership and management skills in SMEs and if possible, explore and develop a composite measure of management and leadership skills that can be used in further analysis. Results from this project were published as Hayton, J (2015) 'Leadership and management skills in SMEs: measuring associations with management practices and performance', BIS research paper No. 211. March 2015. Entrepreneurial Leadership - PhD Studentship (Oct 2013-Sept 2016, £54k) This new three-year PhD studentship funding Elini Kesidou focuses on entrepreneurial leadership and the connections between entrepreneurial leadership and organizational performance. The lead supervisor is Professor Sara Carter. The studentship is co-funded by Scottish Enterprise and the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde Business School. This PhD studentship will focus on high growth companies in Scotland in order to gain a greater understanding of: the characteristics of leadership; whether developed leadership skills have an effect on company performance; the type of business support received from public agencies; and whether and in what ways business support helps business performance. The Rewards of Entrepreneurship - Constructing Economic Wellbeing within Entrepreneurial Households - PhD Studentship (Oct 2013-Sept 2016, £54k) This new three-year PhD studentship funding Johan de Borst focuses on a household perspective on the rewards to entrepreneurship. The studentship is being funded by Strathclyde Business School and the lead supervisor is Professor Sara Carter with Professor Jonathan Levie. The studentship will extend work in Theme 3 (Diversity) by exploring how entrepreneurial households construct economic wellbeing despite uncertain and irregular rewards, and will link with Theme 1 (Ambition) by exploring the potential impact of entrepreneurial households in their support or curtailment of business growth ambitions. Four other additional commissioned projects commenced during the current period. These were: Sociology of Enterprise - April 2014 to Feb 2015 This project for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) undertakes a critical analysis of how institutional factors and the wider political and historical contexts shape entrepreneurial disposition (growth-orientation) and small business management. This qualitative research project, under the direction of Prof Mark Hart, will include researchers from Aston Business School, Policy Research Group (Durham University) and Dr Sally Jones (Leeds University) and will involve 100 face-to-face interviews. Led by Mark Hart on behalf of BIS - interviews with 100 SME business owners are scheduled to complete at the beginning of February. Preliminary findings were presented at the BIS Small Business Research Conference on 3rd March. Nation of Angels - Business angels project - July 2014-January 2015 Led by Mark Hart and Mike Wright this project was undertaken for the UK Business Angels Association and the Centre for Entrepreneurs. Qualitative interviewing and the UKs largest a survey of business angels provided information on the scale and success factors of UK business angel investments. The final report for this project was presented at the UKBAA's Winter Forum end January 2015 (http://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ERC-Angels-Reportpdf). SME-university interaction (January to April 2015) Led by Stephen Roper and Karen Bonner (working with Nola Hewitt-Dundas, Queens) this project is being funded by HEFCE. It will provide a profile of SMEs in local areas in England. The aim is to provide an information resource for higher education institutions about the potential for developing links with local SMEs and the types of demands for services which might exist. Initial results from this project are due to be published by HEFCE in April/May 2015. Innovation in legal services (September to April 2015) Led by Stephen Roper and Jim Love this project is being undertaken for the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Services Board. Almost nothing is known about innovation in this sector and so the project aims to explore the extent and nature of innovation activity in Legal Services. Publications: Between March 2014 and March 2015 ERC published 12 additional research papers intended for an academic audience (Annex A). 40research papers were also published in leading management and entrepreneurship journals including Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Research Policy, Small Business Economics, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management, and the International Journal of Small Business (Annex B). Many of these papers were in collaboration with ERC Research Associates. ERC were represented at most of the major national and international entrepreneurship and management conferences and contributed significantly to the ISBE conference in Manchester in November 2014. ERC staff presented a number of papers at the conference with the paper by Alex Kevill, Kiran Trehan and Mark Easterby-Smith 'Gazing at my Reflection: Owner-Managerial Self-Concept and Dynamic Capabilities' winning a best paper in its track. The paper by Michael Anyadike-Danes and Mark Hart 'All Grown Up? The Fate after 15 years of the Quarter of a Million UK Firms Born in 1998' was also nominated for a track prize. ERC staff (Roper, Mole) also chaired a track at ISBE and Prof Stephen Roper also chaired a conference track on 'Business Growth and Policy' which focused on SME growth and growth-oriented SME policy and presented a masterclass on 'Impact by design'. ERC also held its first policy and research conferences during this period. The policy conference on the 'State of Small Business Britain' was held in Liverpool during June as part of the International Festival of Business and attracted a largely policy related audience of around 120 people. Presentations and video material focused on an attractive presentation of ERC research around high growth, exporting and finance and were mixed with live case studies from high growth business owners and panel discussions. A departure in both style and content for ERC, feedback from the conference was very positive and it is planned to repeat the event in June 2015 in Birmingham. Video material produced for the conference has been used extensively (for example at each of the LEP workshops) since the event and has proved a very worthwhile investment. ERC's first research conference - 'Understanding small business growth' - was held in Birmingham in February 2015 and attracted an audience of academics and largely public sector analysts. Presentations from each of the ERC research themes were accompanied by presentations from leading international scholars and l UK scholars in related areas. Feedback from the event was again very positive with an appreciation both of the quality of the ERC research being showcased as well as the quality of the group of international visitors. Presentations from the event are all available on the ERC website at: http://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/understanding-small-business-growth-2015. March to July 2015 Key ERC publications during this period included the 'Growth Dashboard for 2015' which again highlighted the complexity of the business growth profile of England and the 'Innovation Geography' report which provide the first overview of which UK localities are most innovative. ERC has published five new research papers since March 2015. • In 'Does Entrepreneurship make you wealthy?' Sara Carter and Samuel Mwaura examine whether being an entrepreneur is always beneficial in terms of wealth. Their analysis suggests the answer is a definite 'maybe'. If you start from one of the upper deciles of the income distribution then entrepreneurship will significantly enhance your wealth; if you start in the lowest deciles however the results are less positive. The research findings cast doubt on the value of entrepreneurship as a response to social deprivation or inequality. • A paper by Mike Wright and Helmut Fryges provides a new perspective on university spin-out companies, suggesting an interesting new typology. The paper, developed as part of a collection of papers on spin-outs, provides an introduction to this research area and develops an agenda for further research. • Exporting is the focus of a third research paper: 'Experience, age and exporting performance in UK SMEs'. This paper emphasises the positive exporting effects which result from 'grafted knowledge' - acquired by the recruitment of management with prior international experience. Innovation also has positive exporting effects with more radical new-to-the-industry innovation most strongly linked to inter-regional exports; new-to-the-firm innovation is more strongly linked to intra-regional trade. Early internationalisation is also linked positively to the number of countries to which firms export and the intensity of their export activity. There is no evidence, however, relating early internationalisation to extra-regional exporting providing further evidence that firms tend be 'born regional' rather than 'born global'. • The first (RP 27) links firms' innovation objectives to their innovation strategies while two more recent papers relate innovation to other aspects of organisational and managerial change. Quality improvement methods are shown to generate significant short-term disruption but longer-term beneficial innovation effects (RP 30). Advanced manufacturing technologies - e.g. robotics, CIM - generate similar effects (RP 31). • Finally, in March 2015 we also published a feasibility study examining the longer-term effects of Business Link support to SMEs in 2003 (RP 30). Based on matched survey and longitudinal data the project emphasises the value of longitudinal data in evaluation. August to October 2015 Growth dispositions exposed This commissioned project undertaken for BIS. The study uses perspectives from social theory to examine the dispositions of entrepreneurs towards growth. The findings show that there is a spectrum of dispositions towards growth among small business owners and these are influenced by demographics (gender, socio-economic status, etc.), family background, education, cultural norms and the scale and nature of international links. Within the spectrum, there are 3 broad identifiable categories of business owners: the growth-inclined, growth-ambivalent and growth-resistant. Businesses run by growth-inclined owners tend to perform better than those run by growth-ambivalent, and these in turn perform better than businesses run by growth-resistant owners. The results have implications for the targeting and design of business support services. The drivers of productivity Research provides new insight into the relationship between growth and productivity in UK firms. It also emphasises the sources of the UK productivity puzzle and the weakness of productivity growth among the UK's existing firms. A key finding from the report is the identification of a group of firms - the growth heroes - who achieve both scale-up and productivity growth. These 4-5 per cent of firms are responsible for around a fifth of all productivity increase in the UK. Initial results from this study have been presented as part of a productivity workshop at Aston and more recently at a UKCES Productivity Masterclass. Profiling UK spin-outs ERC has recently published the results of a comprehensive survey of UK university spin-out (USOs) businesses. The study covers how these businesses were formed, the financial and business support received, the business models they pursue, characteristics of the founding teams, intellectual property strategies etc. Illustrative findings are: • On average there is a two year time lag between development of the technology on which the business is based and the spin-out being formed. For a third of USOs this time lag is shorter at just under a year between technology development and commercialisation. • A fifth of USOs develop technology that they then seek to further develop and commercialise in collaboration with other organisations, typically incumbent businesses. Only 14 per cent of USOs were engaged solely in providing consultancy or contract research activities. • The average USO generates £190,000 in sales and as might be expected, older businesses have higher levels of sales. A significant share (almost a third) of USOs were not generating revenue at the time of our survey. These are not newly established businesses, as might be anticipated, but rather businesses that have existed for on average of 7 years, and are focused on selling their technology. • USOs are generating around half of their revenue from non-UK markets. This share is higher for Northern Ireland and Scottish USOs with no significant relationship found between the USO age and the share of sales to export (non-UK) markets. • On average USOs employ 4 highly educated employees, with almost all (93 per cent) having a degree level qualification or higher. Employment growth in USOs is very mixed with gains in some being counteracted by losses in others since 2011. There is no straight-forward explanation for this with sales growth/losses not related to the age of the USO, the business model adopted or share of export sales. • The majority of USOs have a founding team typically comprising 3 individuals, with only 12.5 per cent being established by only one founder. • Average investment varies significantly according to the business model of the USO. Consultancy based USOs require the lowest level of financial investment at c. £0.8m. This contrasts with USOs formed to develop technology with a view to alliances with other businesses, where average investment was £3.9m. Grafting knowledge for SME exporting SMEs and particularly small firms often cite a lack of market knowledge as a barrier to entering export markets and as a barrier to more persistent exporting. Recent ERC analysis of UKTI survey data has examined the determinants of SME exporting. This makes clear the role of a firm's age and its international experience in terms of export reach but also highlights the potential value of 'grafted knowledge' through the recruitment of managers with prior international experience. A number of factors are linked to SMEs' exporting reach (i.e. the number of countries to which they export) and intensity: • International experience has positive effects on export reach and intensity. Firm age has negative effects. • Innovation also has positive exporting effects with more radical new-to-the-industry innovation most strongly linked to inter-regional exports; new-to-the-firm innovation is more strongly linked to intra-regional trade. • Early internationalisation is also linked positively to the number of countries to which firms export and the intensity of their export activity Positive exporting effects also result from grafted knowledge - acquired by the recruitment of management with prior international experience. Specifically, having managers with prior international experience increases firms' probability of exporting to 6-10 countries by 4.15 per cent, the probability of exporting to four global regions by 2.38 per cent, and of earning 16-25 per cent of sales from exports by 2.86 per cent. The implication is that grafted knowledge can be an important supplement to firms' experience in shaping the extent and intensity of firms' export activity. This suggests the potential value of 'export mentoring' and advisory services to support new exporters and firms during the early years of their exporting journey. Family ownership and innovation in micro-firms Schumpeterian arguments related to creative destruction place small, entrepreneurial firms at the centre of the innovation process. The exclusion of micro-enterprises (with less than 10 employees) from most innovation surveys means that we know relatively little about innovation among this group of firms. Our analysis suggests - rather unexpectedly - that family owned firms are more likely than other small firms to introduce new to the market innovations. New ERC research explores the determinants of new-to-the-market innovation, the basis for the Schumpeterian creative destruction process in micro-firms using new survey data for 1,000 UK micro-firms. The results suggest: • Strong support for the interactive nature of micro-enterprise innovation and suggest the value of open innovation for this group of firms; • Firms internal resources such as skills, R&D investment and policy support also prove important; Our results also suggest that family-owned firms are more likely to introduce new-to-the-market innovations. Specifically, family owned firms are 8 per cent more likely to introduce new to the market innovations than comparable firms which are not family owned. It is widely recognised that family businesses face rather particular issues in their growth and development. Our research suggests that helping these firms overcome these issues may have significant and unanticipated benefits in terms of innovation. November 2015 to January 2016 Unlocking UK productivity - internationalisation and innovation in SMEs Published jointly with Goldman Sachs and the British Business Bank this report provides an overview of the UK productivity challenge and the role of SMEs in addressing this challenge. It provides an integrated summary of some of the key elements of ERC research over the last three years pulling together the evidence on high growth in the UK and the importance of innovation and early internationalisation. Written by Mark Hart, the report was widely covered in the UK press. Profiling job growth in 2015 New analysis of job creation in 2015 was published by ERC in December based on work by Mark Hart, Karen Bonner and Michael Anyadike-Danes. Based on data provided by the ONS and made available through the Secure Data Service, the analysis was covered in the Financial Times and the BBC Today programme and picked up by a number of other media outlets as well as Le Monde in France (their equivalent of the Economist). The analysis showed that companies that employ staff added nearly 700,000 net new jobs across the UK in 2014-15 - the highest number recorded in the last two decades. ERC at ISBE ERC researchers contributed 9 papers to the ISBE conference held in held at the Technology & Innovation Centre, Glasgow of which eight were nominated in their track for Best Paper. Promoting data access Robust analysis requires high quality data and one of the Enterprise Research Centre's goals is to enable better exploitation of existing data on SMEs and support the development of new data sources. Much ERC analysis is based on firm-level micro-data accessed via a team project on the UK Data Service's Secure Lab. Over the last couple of months we have taken some steps to encourage broader use of some of the ERC's key data resources and promote a new data source (the Longitudinal Small Business Survey). 2017 Key Findings Measuring the spillovers from publicly funded R&D activity Much of the argument for publicly funding R&D activity either in universities or companies rests on the assertion that the knowledge created is a public or quasi-public good, i.e. it has the potential to generate benefits for society at large. Big investments in public R&D in a particular locality may, for example, generate clustering effects attracting other firms to co-locate. Knowledge or innovation stimulated by publicly funded R&D may stimulate new business and generate positive multiplier or supply chain benefits. This suggests the potential for two types of spillover impacts - on innovation and local growth. We know from current ERC research that publicly funded R&D activity has a positive impact on business growth. Here, we use matched data from the Gateway to Research (GtR) database and UK Innovation Survey to explore growth and innovation spillovers. The UK Innovation Survey provides detailed data on the internal factors which shape firms' innovation outputs while the Business Structure Database provides details on local growth. GtR provides comprehensive data on public R&D spending which we can categorise by locality and broad sector. Linking the two datasets will allow us to assess the (direct) contribution of public funding to the innovation activity of UKIS recipients and assess any (indirect) spillover effects. The central question is whether firms which are in industries or localities which receive high levels of public support are more innovative than they would have been without that public support? In what industries or areas are these spillovers strongest? The results will be relevant to current thinking about the IS and questions about the allocation of IS Challenge Fund resources between industries. Accessing and using alternative finance The landscape of alternative finance has changed rapidly as both equity and debt crowd-funding platforms have matured. This project aims to contrast the growth impacts of two forms of external support for companies- alternative finance and accelerators. The former provides finance but little direct support, the latter provides limited finance but considerable mentoring and network support. We propose to use data from the UK SME Finance Monitor matched to the Business Structure Database to consider which types of firms are using crowdfunding and the impacts on subsequent performance alongside other sources of funding. Synergies between crowdfunding and other sources of revenue will be explored with a clear differentiation between equity and debt platforms. Other datasets on alternative finance are currently being explored (e.g., Funding Circle with ~30,000 observations). Leadership and management in small firms - an activity based perspective Leadership and its relationship to management practices are central to productivity, with the 'long-tail' of lower productivity firms in the UK having been a persistent feature of the UK landscape. Recent data on management practices by UK firms from the ONS does suggest some variation in practices across firms but this is only part of the story. Firm leadership is critical and our objective here is to consider how leadership and management practices work together in shaping performance. We aim to base our analysis on ERC data previously collected for a BEIS research project on management practices matched with BSD to give a longitudinal indication of performance outcomes. The business impact of research council funding - a core project Through its publicly funded Research Councils, the UK invests around £3bn annually in supporting scientific research. This investment is set to increase sharply in future years as the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund is steadily expanded to £2bn in 2020. To date, assessments of the impact of this public investment have been partial and largely case-based. Where quantitative assessments of impact have been attempted, they have often relied on the limited information of innovation surveys or focussed on specific elements of the public science system. Several previous studies add to the substantial evidence from a range of countries on the positive role of research grants, subsidies and tax credits in helping firms to innovate successfully. In our study we analysed for the first time the comprehensive effect of public support to innovation, assessing the impact of engaging with publicly-funded research grants on the performance of UK firms. We drew on funding and partnership data from Gateway to Research, which provides information on funding provided by all of the UK Research Councils over the 2004 to 2016 period as well as the characteristics of the partners involved in each research project. Data on business performance was taken from the Business Structure Database which provides longitudinal data on business performance for all UK firms in terms of employment, turnover and productivity growth. Our study responded to the call by Scandura (2016) for more extensive research on the performance effects of publicly funded scientific research. We extended the existing evidence base in several ways. First, we provide the first comprehensive assessment of the business impacts of public science investments in the UK. Second, as we had data from each of the Research Councils we were able to compare the impact of firms' engagement in basic science projects funded by different organizations. Third, we are also able to explore the potential continuous effect of engagement, according to the value of research grant received. Fourth, we are able to compare levels of impact between sectors, firm size bands and regions. Finally, thanks to the longitudinal data on both firm performance and engagement with the publicly funded science system, we were able to assess time lags between firms' engagement with the science system and any impacts on firms' growth in the short, medium and long term. We employed a difference-in-differences propensity score matching technique to analyse the differences in performance between almost 10,000 UK firms who received publicly-funded research grants and a matched comparator group of firms which received no support. Comparing their performance before and after the award of the research grants we were able to estimate the causal effect of publicly-funded research grants on the performance of firms, taking into account the endogenous factors influencing the decision and the self-selection of firms into this kind of R&D support. Our findings show that receiving a research grant has on average a positive impact for employment and turnover growth. Employment grows faster both in the short and in the medium term, while turnover and labour productivity growth effects are stronger in the medium term, suggesting a time lag between the grants award and the ability of firms to commercially exploit the outcome of their R&D activity. Moreover, we find that the impact of publicly-funded research grants is stronger for manufacturing firms, in particular for high-tech manufacturing companies compared to low-tech manufacturing and other services firms. The positive impact is also incremental as the overall value of the grant increases. This project is illustrative of a number of aspects of ERC activity. First, the original idea for the project came from a senior official at BEIS who was aware of a gap in the knowledge base. Second, the project itself involved data matching and econometric analysis which lie at the core of ERC activity. Finally, the results have been welcomed by the research councils and others within government as providing useful and robust evidence of funding impacts. Understanding exporting and non-exporting - a core project A constant policy concern is that 'not enough UK firms export, and trade as a share of the UK economy has grown more slowly than in the rest of the G7 competitors over recent decades' (Industrial Strategy Green Paper, 2017; p.19). Hence, an interest exists in designing and implementing effective policy schemes aimed at helping non-exporters become exporters, and exporters to remain exporters. To address this challenge, research and policy efforts have been concentrated in identifying factors that not only distinguish exporters from non-exporters, but are also able to secure a long term export status. However, it may be the case that non-exporting firms may make a strategic decision not to export but still achieve high productivity. At any given pre-export stage firms may exhibit various degrees of export readiness and choose either to move forward with, or postpone or even abandon their exporting plans. This in turn suggests that non-exporting firms are heterogeneous in terms of goals and strategies adopted to achieve these goals. Put differently, it may be the case that, at any given time, non-exporting firms may or may not be willing or able to export. In this research we focussed on the heterogeneity of non-exporters, and we exploited unique information provided by the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS) for the period 2015-2016 to distinguish three groups of firms: (i) firms planning to export, (ii) firms able to export (i.e. which have suitable products or services), and, (iii) firms that are neither willing nor able to export. As a first stage in our analysis, we asked what features distinguish each non-exporting state in terms of strategies, ambition and demographics (Figure 1). We then proceeded with exploring the pre-exporting transitions within a two-year period, and finally we investigated whether transitioning from one (pre)export stage to another is linked with firm performance (i.e. productivity). Based on our empirical results we confirmed previous empirical findings that exporters are more productive than non-exporters irrespective of pre-export stage. Firms that planned to export are ambitious and young, but less productive compared to the rest of the non-exporters. Furthermore, for firms that are were able but unwilling to export, innovation mattered, and to some extent the same applies for other investment. Turning to the mapping of the transitions between (pre)export stages, empirical results confirmed the persistence both of the state of exporting, and of the state of unwillingness and inability to export. Turbulence was observed in the rest of pre-export phases. This suggests that the internationalisation process is a dynamic process, and intermediate pre-export phases serve as a transition to a more steady state. Finally, results suggested that the initial pre-export phase matters for attaining productivity benefits only when switching to another state, however this is not the case for exporting firms which are better off when they remain exporters. The geography of innovation across England - new data analysis A key element of ERC research relates to data matching and new types of analysis using existing data sources. The renewed interest in 'place' as part of the policy agenda suggested the value of using existing innovation survey data to generate local innovation benchmarks for LEP areas in England. This report provided an update on our previous analysis published in 2015. The benchmarks are based on a new analysis of data from the 14,000 firms which responded to the UK Innovation Survey 2015. The analysis is designed to provide representative results for each local economic area. Information was provided on ten benchmarks including new indicators for organisational innovation. Three benchmarks focus on forms of organisational and marketing innovation. Three further metrics relate to the inputs and structure of firms' innovation activity with a focus on R&D, design investment and collaboration. Arguably the most important, the remaining four metrics relate to the outcomes from firms' innovation reflecting both the extent of innovation across the population of firms as well as the success of innovation (Figure 2). Three key results stand out in terms of the overall geography of innovation in England: • Reflecting the results of our earlier analysis of the 2013 UK Innovation Survey, we found a concentration of relatively high levels of product and service innovation and new-to-the market innovation in an arc of local economic areas in the South and East Midlands and along the M4 corridor. Albeit with some variation, these areas are characterised by high proportions of innovating firms, a high incidence of new-to-the-market innovation, and relatively high levels of revenue from innovation. Outside this area, Cheshire and Warrington also performs well on a number of metrics. • We observed a rather different geography in terms of process innovation with higher levels of process innovation activity in some Northern and peripheral areas where product/service innovation is less common. • Our new benchmarks for organisational innovation also suggested a rather different geography to that of product/service and process innovation. Organisational innovation seemed particularly prevalent in Cheshire and Warrington and in several more rural areas. Our analysis highlighted the diversity of innovation activity across the UK. Some local areas are marked by strengths in organisational innovation but weaker elsewhere; others exhibited higher levels of collaborative behaviour and R&D. Figure 3 illustrates the innovation benchmarks for four individual areas. The local diversity suggests the value of differentiated local innovation strategies which can build on existing strengths and remedy weaknesses. Figure 3: Innovation benchmarks for four local areas The innovation benchmarks report and related data for individual local areas was published on June 22nd 2017. |
| Exploitation Route | 2014- March One of ERC's objectives is to generate major policy or practice impacts and in its second year, ERC can evidence doing this in a number of ways. A wide range of engagements have been undertaken and these are not exhaustively recorded in this report. They provide an opportunity for influencing thinking around the evidence base which is difficult to track via individuals and their organisations and may only be felt over the longer term. However, examples of engagement which is already yielding significant impacts (or might in years to come) are: LEPS and Local Growth The ERC has been actively involved in the local growth agenda on a number of fronts in the last year. June 2014 saw the launch of the LEP Growth Dashboard in collaboration with the GrowthAccelerator team in Grant Thornton. Its purpose is to provide each LEP with a set of simple metrics on the growth of existing firms and start-ups in the LEP area and set these alongside the key barriers to growth flagged by businesses who are seeking to grow and have become a participant in the Growth Accelerator programme. The Dashboard, based primarily on ONS data, can be used as a source of evidence to inform discussions on priorities in business support and includes easily understood metrics which can be readily updated on an annual basis. The LEP Growth Dashboard is now forming an important input into the discussions at LEP level into the focus of business support in the aftermath of the LEP Growth Deals landing in July 2014 and in particular the design of the Growth Hubs and associated business support spend under ESIF allocations from April 2015. We undertook a series of LEP workshops in October and November to disseminate the LEP Growth Dashboard, alongside the industrial sector clusters work developed by Hart and Danes on behalf of BIS, and develop the understanding of key personnel in the LEP network on the value of the Dashboard and what future metrics could be produced The ERC research team are also working closely with the BIS Local Growth team to use the LEP Growth Dashboard framework to inform the shape and focus of the national level Local Growth Strategy. We provided updated and extended data for BIS and CLG in August 2014 and we are in active discussions on further data requirements at local economic area level. Much of this analysis informed our contributions to the FSB report on "A new design: making local support work for business", which was launched in February 2015. Business Support Evaluation ERC has been involved in a number of discussions with BIS about assessing the impact of business support and in particular advising on how to arrive at a productivity-based evaluation framework. Our contribution built on the evidence provided to the All Party Parliamentary Small Business Group Inquiry on SMEs and Productivity in 2014 and which reported in February 2015 (written and oral evidence provided). ERC researchers have been providing expertise to the design and implementation of quasi-experimental evaluation methodologies related to business support. This contribution concerns a number of RCTs related to new business support products and services in England. ERC has been involved in each of the three RCTs currently running in the UK, advising on the initial design of the BIS Growth Voucher programme and having on-going involvement with the other two RCTs - the Growth Impact Pilot and the University Growth Voucher programme run by a consortium of Small Business Charter Business Schools. Both programmes were launched in 2014. ERC have been engaged with the What Works Centre on Local Growth in the context of business support to develop their work with the LEPs. We assisted in the development of an agenda for their meeting in Leeds (October 2014) with the LEPs and hosted by the Cabinet Office to discuss the appetite for experimentation in evaluation across the range of business advice interventions proposed in the SEPs and ESIF documents which go live for funding projects in April 2015. ERC provided the WWC with a spectrum of business advice interventions (from light touch information provision through diagnosis and brokerage to intensive business growth programmes) that could become a menu for LEPs to select from as they engage with this agenda. It is this menu that will provide the framework for the introduction of RCTs in this delivery space. BIS Enterprise 2020 ERC were invited to participate in discussions about the development of the BIS Enterprise 2020 Strategy document. Participation in an initial 'sandpit' workshop in November 2014 with a range of government stakeholders led to a more detailed and focused follow-up discussion with ERC in January 2015 to ensure the policy discussions continue to be grounded in the evidence base as they are developed. In addition, ERC provided a rapid response to a BIS ED exercise on policy prioritisation. 2 of ERC's recommendations were subsequently taken forward in BIS' overall set of priorities. 2015March to July 2015 • We have published two collaborative reports over this period. The innovation benchmarks report was launched with Enterprise Europe Network and the Growth Dashboard was a collaboration with the Business Growth Service. • We are undertaking the evaluation of the Birmingham Venturefest event which was held on the 30th June. ERC also participated in the event reporting on the Growth Dashboard and Innovation Benchmarks reports. • Stephen Roper and Katherine Hathaway did a presentation on ERC to the ESRC Council in May. This focussed very much on ERC's policy focus and impact and engagement activities. • We have been actively engaging with the banks over the last quarter in a series of meetings with Barclays, Lloyds and RBS. Mark Hart presented to Lloyds Board on the Growth Dashboard and M2000 companies and further presentations within Lloyds are planned. Mark Hart has also been working with Matt Smith (CEO, Office, Building and Commercial Banking, RBS) who is leading the REAP London project and has been assisting them with data issues regarding their focus on building a support offer for growth firms in London. • We held a joint event with CDFA (the second of this type) examining the factors shaping the growth of micro-firms. This was well attended and led to some further interesting network opportunities with HMRC. August to October 2015 • ERC research was a central feature of two workshops organised by BIS. Results from the Sociology of Enterprise and an element of the work from the Ambition research theme were presented as part of a workshop on entrepreneurial mindsets. Research drawing on Theme 6 was presented at a workshop on productivity. • ERC was invited by UKCES to contribute to its 'Masterclass' series. A presentation drawing on their productivity analysis was given by Jun Du and Karen Bonner (20th Nov 2015). • ERC is working with the Pink Shoe Club to host a joint event (28th Nov) focussed on womens' enterprise. Mark Hart will share some results from the GEM project at this event and other ERC staff will contribute to panel discussions. • ERC have been invited to give a presentation to HMRC on small firms and innovation in December 2015. This is pleasing as it creates an opportunity to identify potential opportunities for further collaboration and data sharing. • ERC continues to be approached by different organisations to provide 'SME intelligence'. One recent example is an invitation from BIS to participate in a workshop on incubators and accelerators as a contribution to the development of a new policy paper. ERC data/evidence currently also supporting at least 3 CSR 2015 bids. November 2015 to January 2016 Unlocking UK productivity - internationalisation and innovation in SMEs The report makes the following main arguments: • The UK has an opportunity to enhance its productivity. Whilst before 2008 productivity in the UK was on a strong upward trend, the UK's productivity performance has since weakened. Improving this has become a vital agenda for the UK government. • SMEs have a key role to play in addressing this challenge: The SME contribution to the UK economy is significant. Boosting SME productivity growth can have a significant impact on UK productivity growth at large. • The role of internationalisation and innovation in boosting SME productivity growth has been relatively underexplored. Evidence strongly indicates that those businesses that engage in international activity and innovation are more likely to enhance firm performance - including productivity growth. • It is estimated that between 9 and 12% of non-exporting firms within the UK could become exporters and just over half that do export could become persistent exporters. Together these two groups include more than 110,000 SMEs in the UK economy. If they are successfully encouraged to export or export persistently, an additional £1.15 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) could be added to the UK economy within the first year. • Internationally active SMEs are three times more likely to introduce products or services that are new to their sector than those which are entirely domestic in orientation. Despite this positive relationship, however, only 1 in 5 employer SMEs are exporters. • The limited engagement by SMEs in internationalisation and innovation can be explained, in part, by SMEs' low growth ambition: UK SMEs are demonstrated to be less 'growth inclined' and ambitious than other G8 economies. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor alone has pointed to a 17% growth aspiration in the UK among entrepreneurs vs 27% in the US. Profiling job growth in 2015 The key points emphasised: • Employer enterprises - those with at least one employee, including all businesses from start-ups through to large multinationals - created or added a total of 2.52 million jobs. This was offset by enterprises contracting or going out of business altogether, which saw 1.83 million jobs lost, giving a net job creation figure for the UK SME sector of 695,500. • Of the new jobs added, 1.5 million were created by existing companies expanding. In addition, a record number of start-up firms added a further 1 million. This took the total number of private sector employees to a record 20.3 million. • The figures on UK companies show that 299,591 firms were 'born' in 2014-15. This was the highest number of start-up 'births' in a single year since comparable records began in 1997. • The total number of employer enterprises across the UK rose to just under 1.8 million, also a record. These firms account for approximately one third of all businesses in the UK, the remaining two-thirds (3.6 million) including the self-employed, partnerships and enterprises with zero employees. Other Impact Activities • ERC presented material from the Innovation in Legal Services projects at two workshops organised by the Legal Services Board and the Law Society in November 2015. • ERC partnered with the Department of Trade and Investment (NI) to hold a workshop focussing on 'Innovation in micro-businesses evidence and policy support' in Belfast in November 2015. • ERC were invited to present a summary of current research evidence to the Business Taxation team in HMRC in December 2015. This part of an on-going dialogue with HMRC which we hope will develop into a future collaborative project (on exporting and productivity) and dialogue around Growth Hubs. • ERC together with ISBE (Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship) held a meeting to discuss building a range of research led activities which promote SME growth through university/SME engagement. This recognised the transition of the Community of Interest into an ISBE Special Interest Group. Contacts at the meeting led to the opportunity to meet with Business Wales in January. • ERC partnered with UKTI in a November event organised by Warwick Business School to present research results relating to mid-sized businesses. A further series of events are planned for March - June 2016. • Sara Carter was appointed as a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board, Center for Agricultural Business Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Science. • Sara Carter also delivered a 'Distinguished Professorial Address' 'Does Entrepreneurship Make You Wealthy?' University of West of England, October 2015. • ERC's Michael Anyadike-Danes has accepted an appointment onto the Microbusiness Research Portal Advisory Board comprising a range of experts from across government, academia and private sector. The Microbusiness Research Portal is being launched as part of a partnership between the ONS (Office for National Statistics), the University of St Andrews and Middlesex University, with the active support of BIS to provide a powerful source of research evidence for policy-makers and practitioners as well a unique academic research resource for those interested in the characteristics, drivers, growth and development of microbusiness. • Recent PR work to support the launch of Unlocking UK productivity - internationalisation and innovation in SMEs was significantly affected by the news of the attacks in Paris. The pre-Christmas work on the latest business population data was more successful including radio and press coverage. Future plans are being prepared for the forthcoming M2000 Report and Jun Du's report on Productivity as well as on the latest high growth firms data. • ERC continues to be approached by different organisations to provide 'SME intelligence'. One recent example is an invitation from BIS to participate in a workshop on incubators and accelerators as a contribution to the development of a new policy paper. |
| Sectors | Aerospace Defence and Marine Agriculture Food and Drink Chemicals Communities and Social Services/Policy Construction Creative Economy Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education Electronics Energy Environment Financial Services and Management Consultancy Healthcare Leisure Activities including Sports Recreation and Tourism Government Democracy and Justice Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Culture Heritage Museums and Collections Pharmaceu |
| URL | http://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/our-work/publications/ |
| Description | 2014 One of ERC's objectives is to generate major policy or practice impacts and in its second year, ERC can evidence doing this in a number of ways. A wide range of engagements have been undertaken and these are not exhaustively recorded in this report. They provide an opportunity for influencing thinking around the evidence base which is difficult to track via individuals and their organisations and may only be felt over the longer term. However, examples of engagement which is already yielding significant impacts are: LEPS and Local Growth The ERC has been actively involved in the local growth agenda on a number of fronts in the last year. June 2014 saw the launch of the LEP Growth Dashboard in collaboration with the GrowthAccelerator team in Grant Thornton. Its purpose is to provide each LEP with a set of simple metrics on the growth of existing firms and start-ups in the LEP area and set these alongside the key barriers to growth flagged by businesses who are seeking to grow and have become a participant in the Growth Accelerator programme. The Dashboard, based primarily on ONS data, can be used as a source of evidence to inform discussions on priorities in business support and includes easily understood metrics which can be readily updated on an annual basis. The LEP Growth Dashboard is now forming an important input into the discussions at LEP level into the focus of business support in the aftermath of the LEP Growth Deals landing in July 2014 and in particular the design of the Growth Hubs and associated business support spend under ESIF allocations from April 2015. We undertook a series of LEP workshops in October and November to disseminate the LEP Growth Dashboard, alongside the industrial sector clusters work developed by Hart and Danes on behalf of BIS, and develop the understanding of key personnel in the LEP network on the value of the Dashboard and what future metrics could be produced The ERC research team are also working closely with the BIS Local Growth team to use the LEP Growth Dashboard framework to inform the shape and focus of the national level Local Growth Strategy. We provided updated and extended data for BIS and CLG in August 2014 and we are in active discussions on further data requirements at local economic area level. Much of this analysis informed our contributions to the FSB report on "A new design: making local support work for business", which was launched in February 2015. Business Support Evaluation. ERC has been involved in a number of discussions with BIS about assessing the impact of business support and in particular advising on how to arrive at a productivity-based evaluation framework. Our contribution built on the evidence provided to the All Party Parliamentary Small Business Group Inquiry on SMEs and Productivity in 2014 and which reported in February 2015 (written and oral evidence provided). ERC researchers have been providing expertise to the design and implementation of quasi-experimental evaluation methodologies related to business support. This contribution concerns a number of RCTs related to new business support products and services in England. ERC has been involved in each of the three RCTs currently running in the UK, advising on the initial design of the BIS Growth Voucher programme and having on-going involvement with the other two RCTs - the Growth Impact Pilot and the University Growth Voucher programme run by a consortium of Small Business Charter Business Schools. Both programmes were launched in 2014. ERC have been engaged with the What Works Centre on Local Growth in the context of business support to develop their work with the LEPs. We assisted in the development of an agenda for their meeting in Leeds (October 2014) with the LEPs and hosted by the Cabinet Office to discuss the appetite for experimentation in evaluation across the range of business advice interventions proposed in the SEPs and ESIF documents which go live for funding projects in April 2015. ERC provided the WWC with a spectrum of business advice interventions (from light touch information provision through diagnosis and brokerage to intensive business growth programmes) that could become a menu for LEPs to select from as they engage with this agenda. It is this menu that will provide the framework for the introduction of RCTs in this delivery space. BIS Enterprise 2020 ERC were invited to participate in discussions about the development of the BIS Enterprise 2020 Strategy document. Participation in an initial 'sandpit' workshop in November 2014 with a range of government stakeholders led to a more detailed and focused follow-up discussion with ERC in January 2015 to ensure the policy discussions continue to be grounded in the evidence base as they are developed. In addition, ERC provided a rapid response to a BIS ED exercise on policy prioritisation. 2 of ERC's recommendations were subsequently taken forward in BIS' overall set of priorities. 2015 • We have published two collaborative reports over this period. The innovation benchmarks report was launched with Enterprise Europe Network and the Growth Dashboard was a collaboration with the Business Growth Service. • We are undertaking the evaluation of the Birmingham Venturefest event which was held on the 30th June. ERC also participated in the event reporting on the Growth Dashboard and Innovation Benchmarks reports. • Stephen Roper and Katherine Hathaway did a presentation on ERC to the ESRC Council in May. This focussed very much on ERC's policy focus and impact and engagement activities. • We have been actively engaging with the banks over the last quarter in a series of meetings with Barclays, Lloyds and RBS. Mark Hart presented to Lloyds Board on the Growth Dashboard and M2000 companies and further presentations within Lloyds are planned. Mark Hart has also been working with Matt Smith (CEO, Office, Building and Commercial Banking, RBS) who is leading the REAP London project and has been assisting them with data issues regarding their focus on building a support offer for growth firms in London. • We held a joint event with CDFA (the second of this type) examining the factors shaping the growth of micro-firms. This was well attended and led to some further interesting network opportunities with HMRC. • ERC research was a central feature of two workshops organised by BIS. Results from the Sociology of Enterprise and an element of the work from the Ambition research theme were presented as part of a workshop on entrepreneurial mindsets. Research drawing on Theme 6 was presented at a workshop on productivity. • ERC was invited by UKCES to contribute to its 'Masterclass' series. A presentation drawing on their productivity analysis was given by Jun Du and Karen Bonner (20th Nov 2015). • ERC is working with the Pink Shoe Club to host a joint event (28th Nov) focussed on womens' enterprise. Mark Hart will share some results from the GEM project at this event and other ERC staff will contribute to panel discussions. • ERC have been invited to give a presentation to HMRC on small firms and innovation in December 2015. This is pleasing as it creates an opportunity to identify potential opportunities for further collaboration and data sharing. • ERC continues to be approached by different organisations to provide 'SME intelligence'. One recent example is an invitation from BIS to participate in a workshop on incubators and accelerators as a contribution to the development of a new policy paper. ERC data/evidence currently also supporting at least 3 CSR 2015 bids. 2016 Unlocking UK productivity - internationalisation and innovation in SMEs The report makes the following main arguments: • The UK has an opportunity to enhance its productivity. Whilst before 2008 productivity in the UK was on a strong upward trend, the UK's productivity performance has since weakened. Improving this has become a vital agenda for the UK government. • SMEs have a key role to play in addressing this challenge: The SME contribution to the UK economy is significant. Boosting SME productivity growth can have a significant impact on UK productivity growth at large. • The role of internationalisation and innovation in boosting SME productivity growth has been relatively underexplored. Evidence strongly indicates that those businesses that engage in international activity and innovation are more likely to enhance firm performance - including productivity growth. • It is estimated that between 9 and 12% of non-exporting firms within the UK could become exporters and just over half that do export could become persistent exporters. Together these two groups include more than 110,000 SMEs in the UK economy. If they are successfully encouraged to export or export persistently, an additional £1.15 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) could be added to the UK economy within the first year. • Internationally active SMEs are three times more likely to introduce products or services that are new to their sector than those which are entirely domestic in orientation. Despite this positive relationship, however, only 1 in 5 employer SMEs are exporters. • The limited engagement by SMEs in internationalisation and innovation can be explained, in part, by SMEs' low growth ambition: UK SMEs are demonstrated to be less 'growth inclined' and ambitious than other G8 economies. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor alone has pointed to a 17% growth aspiration in the UK among entrepreneurs vs 27% in the US. Profiling job growth in 2015 The key points emphasised: • Employer enterprises - those with at least one employee, including all businesses from start-ups through to large multinationals - created or added a total of 2.52 million jobs. This was offset by enterprises contracting or going out of business altogether, which saw 1.83 million jobs lost, giving a net job creation figure for the UK SME sector of 695,500. • Of the new jobs added, 1.5 million were created by existing companies expanding. In addition, a record number of start-up firms added a further 1 million. This took the total number of private sector employees to a record 20.3 million. • The figures on UK companies show that 299,591 firms were 'born' in 2014-15. This was the highest number of start-up 'births' in a single year since comparable records began in 1997. • The total number of employer enterprises across the UK rose to just under 1.8 million, also a record. These firms account for approximately one third of all businesses in the UK, the remaining two-thirds (3.6 million) including the self-employed, partnerships and enterprises with zero employees. Other Impact Activities • ERC presented material from the Innovation in Legal Services projects at two workshops organised by the Legal Services Board and the Law Society in November 2015. • ERC partnered with the Department of Trade and Investment (NI) to hold a workshop focussing on 'Innovation in micro-businesses evidence and policy support' in Belfast in November 2015. • ERC were invited to present a summary of current research evidence to the Business Taxation team in HMRC in December 2015. This part of an on-going dialogue with HMRC which we hope will develop into a future collaborative project (on exporting and productivity) and dialogue around Growth Hubs. • ERC together with ISBE (Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship) held a meeting to discuss building a range of research led activities which promote SME growth through university/SME engagement. This recognised the transition of the Community of Interest into an ISBE Special Interest Group. Contacts at the meeting led to the opportunity to meet with Business Wales in January. • ERC partnered with UKTI in a November event organised by Warwick Business School to present research results relating to mid-sized businesses. A further series of events are planned for March - June 2016. • Sara Carter was appointed as a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board, Center for Agricultural Business Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Science. • Sara Carter also delivered a 'Distinguished Professorial Address' 'Does Entrepreneurship Make You Wealthy?' University of West of England, October 2015. • ERC's Michael Anyadike-Danes has accepted an appointment onto the Microbusiness Research Portal Advisory Board comprising a range of experts from across government, academia and private sector. The Microbusiness Research Portal is being launched as part of a partnership between the ONS (Office for National Statistics), the University of St Andrews and Middlesex University, with the active support of BIS to provide a powerful source of research evidence for policy-makers and practitioners as well a unique academic research resource for those interested in the characteristics, drivers, growth and development of microbusiness. • Recent PR work to support the launch of Unlocking UK productivity - internationalisation and innovation in SMEs was significantly affected by the news of the attacks in Paris. The pre-Christmas work on the latest business population data was more successful including radio and press coverage. Future plans are being prepared for the forthcoming M2000 Report and Jun Du's report on Productivity as well as on the latest high growth firms data. • ERC continues to be approached by different organisations to provide 'SME intelligence'. One recent example is an invitation from BIS to participate in a workshop on incubators and accelerators as a contribution to the development of a new policy paper. 2016 Our Annual State of Small Business Britain conference was held on 30 November 2016 at the Shard, and we received very positive stakeholder feedback on the event. The Conference was co-hosted this year with Goldman-Sachs. We released the 2016 edition of our UK Local Growth Dashboard at the conference, which was picked up by the BBC in their afternoon news bulletins. More information about the Conference is included in section 4.1 below, and an evaluation report is included with the meeting papers. ERC has been involved in the development and running of two data user groups over recent months. 1. The Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS) User Group held its first meeting at the ISBE conference in 2015 and an update session at the 2016 ISBE conference in October. ERC ran a competition for small research grants supported by BEIS in Spring 2016 focusing on the first wave of the LSBS and five projects were supported. Reports from these projects either have been or will be published by ERC as research papers. 2. The UK Innovation Survey (UKIS) User Group held its first meeting on July 7th 2016 at BEIS. Initial results from the UKIS 2015 were presented alongside some academic research. A further meeting will take place on March 21st also at BEIS which will be a further opportunity to share research and policy papers based on the UKIS. ERC held a Brexit Summit meeting with the British Business Bank at The Shard in September 2016, focusing on the theme of 'Sustaining & Developing SME Growth in a Period of Uncertainty'. The event was attended by over 20 senior policy makers. A second ERC-HMRC workshop to discuss how ERC might provide analysis and insights on SME growth was held at The Shard in November 2016, which also involved representatives from BEIS and DIT. The ERC hosted and took part in the Cities and Local Growth Policy Teams' Away Day, which was held at The Shard on Thursday 12th January. Stephen Roper and Mark Hart presented ERC research on innovation and SME growth, and took part in stimulating discussion with the policy teams on the themes of the Government's new Industrial Strategy and place. The Cities and local Growth Unit have indicated they would like a further workshop to discuss ERC insights on the Industrial Strategy. 2017-18 Engagement activity has been intensive over this period with preparations for the ERC conference, and on-going discussions with BEIS around Growth Hubs and Business Support. ERC worked with the 'What Works Centre' on a joint position paper on the provision of business support. In October, ERC also participated in round-table events with ESRC and Innovate UK around potential policies around innovation diffusion and is ran a session at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester. In September/October we also contributed to the EU Concordia workshop on innovation policy, presenting our analysis of the effectiveness of innovation policy to the Cotec think-tank in Madrid, and participating in an OECD expert mission to advise the Austrian government on future innovation policy. Two significant research papers were published over this period relating to business growth and survival during the recession and the business growth impact of participation in Research Council and Innovate UK funded projects. The latter attracted significant media coverage around the time of the ERC conference, including a news story on the GOV.UK website which contained a quote from Minister Jo Johnson. See: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-jobs-and-billions-to-uk-economy-from-innovation-grants. ERC Annual Conference • As noted above, our Annual State of Small Business Britain Conference was held on 7th September 2017 at The Shard. On the day the event attracted over 100 delegates to discuss the question of what needs to be done to support growth through innovation in UK SMEs. The conference was chaired by the ERC's Lucy Armstrong, and welcomed a number of high profile external speakers, including Kevin Baughan, Deputy Chief Executive of Innovate UK; Tim Dafforn, Chief Entrepreneurial Adviser, BEIS, and the entrepreneur and founder of Coffee Republic, Sahar Hashemi OBE. The presentations and discussions captured the perspectives of policy makers, researchers and businesses. There was excellent engagement from the audience, leading to high quality questioning and debate. New ERC research on the impact of research council grants on the performance of UK firms was published on the day and presented for the first time at the conference. This research shows that grants do have a positive impact on growth in terms of turnover and employment. However, the findings also raise the question of whether innovation policy could be more effective if there was more targeted support for firms with lower levels of productivity. This provoked much discussion at the conference, and led Kevin Baughan of Innovate UK to comment: "The ERC's research is really useful and will stimulate a great amount of discussion and policy thinking within Innovate UK". The event generated quality media coverage (BBC and The Times), significant attention by key stakeholders and influencers on social media, and a 92% increase in visitors to the ERC's website. Other Engagement Activities during 2017-8 • Over the summer discussions were held with representatives from the Productivity Leadership Group in relation to the newly launched 'Be the Business' productivity movement led by Sir Charlie Mayfield. The ERC has started to advise the group about their evaluation needs, and on a new survey on productivity amongst SMEs in the manufacturing sector. • In September we held the first in a new set of monthly meetings with the BEIS Business and Local Growth team, to share ERC expertise and insights, and help shape the team's future research strategy. • On 3rd October the ERC held its first ever event at a political party conference, hosting a roundtable event at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester entitled: 'How can we drive better innovation and productivity in UK small businesses'? 11th July 2017 - ERC held a further meeting with the Growth Group at HMRC along with representatives of BEIS and DIT 26th July 2017 - ERC hosted a workshop jointly with ISBE on policy choices between supporting start-ups and growth businesses. Stephen Roper presented some recent ERC research on high growth episodes. 6th Sept 2017 - Stephen Roper and Mark Hart participated in a workshop at BEIS on business support evidence and priorities hosted by Andrew Patterson and involving the What Works Centre, NESTA and policy advisors from No. 10. 12th Sept 2017 - Stephen Roper was part of a panel on university-business collaboration at a workshop funded by the British Council (London). 14th September - Stephen Roper and Mark Hart met with RBS to discuss new research on MSBs and GEM. 26-27 Sept - Stephen Roper presented results from an ERC Research Paper on policy effectiveness in the UK and Spain at Concordi in Seville. 31st July 2017 - Mark Hart met with Sahar Hashemi (Co-Chair of Scale-up taskforce) to discuss business support options and to brief her on ERC research. 1st August 2017 - Mark Hart met with NESTA to discuss collaborations on firm-level research and business support. 30th August 2017 - Mark Hart had discussions with the FT about their forthcoming Special Report on small business and entrepreneurship in the UK - use of ERC data and insights. 6th Sept 2017 - Mark Hart and Stephen Roper participated in a workshop at BEIS on business support evidence and priorities hosted by Andrew Patterson and involving the What Works Centre, NESTA and policy advisors from No. 10. 14th September - Mark Hart and Stephen Roper met with RBS to discuss new research projects on MSBs and GEM. 21st September - Mark Hart published a blog entitled "It's time Britain's Brexit negotiators 'educated' themselves on the needs of small business". 26th September - Mark Hart met with ACCA Global to discuss potential joint research on high growth firms. 18th September - Vicki Belt met with the communications team at the British Chambers of Commerce to discuss potential areas for joint working in the future. 20th September - Vicki Belt met with staff from Investors in People to talk about their research and data strategy. 28th - September - Vicki Belt reignited a discussion with Universities UK about a potential joint ERC-UUK policy seminar to be held at Warwick University. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2013 |
| Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Construction,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics,Energy,Environment,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal Economic Policy & public services |
| Description | HS2 Economic Advisory Panel |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | Smart Specialisation and Science Innovation Audit Expert Group |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | Evaluation of Scottish Account Management (Scottish Enterprise/Scottish Government, Jan-18, Feb-19) |
| Amount | £40,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Scottish Enterprise |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2018 |
| End | 02/2019 |
| Description | How to improve Productivity in the Manufacturing Supply Chain - Diffusing Excellence across the UK Casting and Metal-forming Sectors |
| Amount | £331,641 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ES/S001786/1 |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2018 |
| End | 01/2021 |
| Description | Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund |
| Amount | £500,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Department | Business Engagement and Innovation Services |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2017 |
| End | 03/2018 |
| Title | Micro-business Britain |
| Description | Micro-businesses (with less than 10 employees) form the bulk of the UK business population but are excluded from key official survey such as the UK Innovation Survey. This project involves the largest survey ever undertaken of micro-businesses in the UK (around 6,000) with companion surveys in Ireland (1,500 firms) and the USA (2,000) firms. Survey data focuses on issues around innovation, adoption, resilience, ambition, supply chain participation and investment plans. Detailed data is collected both for the firm and the business leader to reflect the home-business dimension. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | None |
| Description | Building resilient businesses among disadvantaged groups |
| Organisation | Aston University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project focuses on personal and business resilience among business founders from disadvantaged groups. ERC is the lead partner in this project working with research partners in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The study will comprise an initial literature review, fieldwork in London (late 2018) and survey fieldwork in four other European cities (Milan, Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Key outcomes from the project will be research reports and toolkits to enable business facing organisations to support the development of resilient businesses. Dr Maria Wishart is the research fellow working on this project. This project is proceeding as per the planned timeline with the literature review well underway. This is focussing on two key strands of literature - resilience at individual and organisational levels and the contribution of disadvantaged groups to entrepreneurship across Europe. Both will be completed by end-May and launched in early-July. A UK Advisory Group for the project has been established and held its first meeting and Advisory Groups are being established in partner countries. |
| Impact | Two initial literature review were published on July 2018. Initial key findings report was published on December 2018. European fieldwork is currently underway and initial results are due in July-August 2019. Development of related tool-kits is currently underway and will be finalised by December 2019. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Building resilient businesses among disadvantaged groups |
| Organisation | IE University |
| Country | Spain |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project focuses on personal and business resilience among business founders from disadvantaged groups. ERC is the lead partner in this project working with research partners in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The study will comprise an initial literature review, fieldwork in London (late 2018) and survey fieldwork in four other European cities (Milan, Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Key outcomes from the project will be research reports and toolkits to enable business facing organisations to support the development of resilient businesses. Dr Maria Wishart is the research fellow working on this project. This project is proceeding as per the planned timeline with the literature review well underway. This is focussing on two key strands of literature - resilience at individual and organisational levels and the contribution of disadvantaged groups to entrepreneurship across Europe. Both will be completed by end-May and launched in early-July. A UK Advisory Group for the project has been established and held its first meeting and Advisory Groups are being established in partner countries. |
| Impact | Two initial literature review were published on July 2018. Initial key findings report was published on December 2018. European fieldwork is currently underway and initial results are due in July-August 2019. Development of related tool-kits is currently underway and will be finalised by December 2019. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Building resilient businesses among disadvantaged groups |
| Organisation | Institute for SME Research Bonn |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | This project focuses on personal and business resilience among business founders from disadvantaged groups. ERC is the lead partner in this project working with research partners in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The study will comprise an initial literature review, fieldwork in London (late 2018) and survey fieldwork in four other European cities (Milan, Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Key outcomes from the project will be research reports and toolkits to enable business facing organisations to support the development of resilient businesses. Dr Maria Wishart is the research fellow working on this project. This project is proceeding as per the planned timeline with the literature review well underway. This is focussing on two key strands of literature - resilience at individual and organisational levels and the contribution of disadvantaged groups to entrepreneurship across Europe. Both will be completed by end-May and launched in early-July. A UK Advisory Group for the project has been established and held its first meeting and Advisory Groups are being established in partner countries. |
| Impact | Two initial literature review were published on July 2018. Initial key findings report was published on December 2018. European fieldwork is currently underway and initial results are due in July-August 2019. Development of related tool-kits is currently underway and will be finalised by December 2019. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Building resilient businesses among disadvantaged groups |
| Organisation | University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project focuses on personal and business resilience among business founders from disadvantaged groups. ERC is the lead partner in this project working with research partners in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The study will comprise an initial literature review, fieldwork in London (late 2018) and survey fieldwork in four other European cities (Milan, Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Key outcomes from the project will be research reports and toolkits to enable business facing organisations to support the development of resilient businesses. Dr Maria Wishart is the research fellow working on this project. This project is proceeding as per the planned timeline with the literature review well underway. This is focussing on two key strands of literature - resilience at individual and organisational levels and the contribution of disadvantaged groups to entrepreneurship across Europe. Both will be completed by end-May and launched in early-July. A UK Advisory Group for the project has been established and held its first meeting and Advisory Groups are being established in partner countries. |
| Impact | Two initial literature review were published on July 2018. Initial key findings report was published on December 2018. European fieldwork is currently underway and initial results are due in July-August 2019. Development of related tool-kits is currently underway and will be finalised by December 2019. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Building resilient businesses among disadvantaged groups |
| Organisation | University of Padova |
| Country | Italy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This project focuses on personal and business resilience among business founders from disadvantaged groups. ERC is the lead partner in this project working with research partners in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The study will comprise an initial literature review, fieldwork in London (late 2018) and survey fieldwork in four other European cities (Milan, Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Key outcomes from the project will be research reports and toolkits to enable business facing organisations to support the development of resilient businesses. Dr Maria Wishart is the research fellow working on this project. This project is proceeding as per the planned timeline with the literature review well underway. This is focussing on two key strands of literature - resilience at individual and organisational levels and the contribution of disadvantaged groups to entrepreneurship across Europe. Both will be completed by end-May and launched in early-July. A UK Advisory Group for the project has been established and held its first meeting and Advisory Groups are being established in partner countries. |
| Impact | Two initial literature review were published on July 2018. Initial key findings report was published on December 2018. European fieldwork is currently underway and initial results are due in July-August 2019. Development of related tool-kits is currently underway and will be finalised by December 2019. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | 'Be the Business' productivity movement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Over the summer discussions were held with representatives from the Productivity Leadership Group in relation to the newly launched 'Be the Business' productivity movement led by Sir Charlie Mayfield. The ERC has started to advise the group about their evaluation needs, and on a new survey on productivity amongst SMEs in the manufacturing sector. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | A workshop on distributional aspects of innovation and the impact of incubators and accelerators |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • A workshop on distributional aspects of innovation and the impact of incubators and accelerators was held at BEIS on 14th March to which Stephen contributed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Annual State of Small Business Britain Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | our Annual State of Small Business Britain Conference was held on 7th September at The Shard. Preparation for the conference unsurprisingly dominated ERC engagement activity over the July/August period. On the day the event attracted over 100 delegates to discuss the question of what needs to be done to support growth through innovation in UK SMEs. The conference was chaired by the ERC's Lucy Armstrong, and welcomed a number of high profile external speakers, including Kevin Baughan, Deputy Chief Executive of Innovate UK; Tim Dafforn, Chief Entrepreneurial Adviser, BEIS, and the entrepreneur and founder of Coffee Republic, Sahar Hashemi OBE. The presentations and discussions captured the perspectives of policy makers, researchers and businesses. There was excellent engagement from the audience, leading to high quality questioning and debate. New ERC research on the impact of research council grants on the performance of UK firms was published on the day and presented for the first time at the conference. This research shows that grants do have a positive impact on growth in terms of turnover and employment. However, the findings also raise the question of whether innovation policy could be more effective if there was more targeted support for firms with lower levels of productivity. This provoked much discussion at the conference, and led Kevin Baughan of Innovate UK to comment: "The ERC's research is really useful and will stimulate a great amount of discussion and policy thinking within Innovate UK". Overall, the conference had four main aims: • To cement the position of the ERC as a source of robust data and evidence on SME growth and provider of valuable insights on the economic development landscape; • To gather together a range of key influencers from the business, policy and practitioner communities and generate stimulating discussion and debate; • To share new ERC research insights on the themes of innovation and business growth; • To demonstrate the position of the ERC as sitting at the centre of policy debates on SME growth, and its close connections with the policy and business communities. All of these aims were successfully met. Delegate feedback received both on the day, and via the post-event feedback questionnaire, was overwhelmingly positive, particularly in terms of the effectiveness of the sessions, conference chairing, mix of speakers and overall conference organisation. Over 90% of delegates responding to the questionnaire rated the event as either 'very effective' or 'effective' (one of the ERC's main KPIs). The event generated quality media coverage (BBC and The Times), significant attention by key stakeholders and influencers on social media, and a 92% increase in visitors to the ERC's website. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Annual State of Small Business Britain Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | our Annual State of Small Business Britain Conference was held on 30th November. We co-hosted the event this year with the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Programme at The Shard. The event was Chaired by Lucy Armstrong, and was attended by over 100 delegates. We launched the UK Local Growth Dashboard 2016 at the event, which generated a good amount of media attention, resulting in 55 pieces of media coverage, and Mark Hart appearing live on BBC News. The press coverage was all positive. The main focus of the media messaging was the need to appreciate and understand the range of different types and patterns of firm growth in the UK, and to position the ERC as experts in SME data. The conference consisted of a mix of presentations and lively panel discussions. High profile external speakers included Liam Byrne MP, Chair of the All Party Group on Inclusive Growth, Cliff Prior, CEO of Big Society Capital, and Phil Smith, chairman of Cisco UK and Ireland. The panel discussions represented perspectives from the worlds of local and national policy, as well as small business owners themselves. There was excellent engagement from the audience, leading to high quality questions and discussion. Delegate feedback was overwhelmingly positive, particularly in terms of speaker quality and overall conference organisation, and there are many positive lessons that we will take forward to the 2017 conference. A conference evaluation report is included in the meeting papers for further information. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Celebrating a decade of ERC research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The Enterprise Research Centre hosted a private dinner on 23rd January in London to celebrate its 10th Anniversary. The dinner was attended by a range of guests including research funders and collaborators, members of the ERC steering group, as well the ERC Directors and Centre Managers. During the evening, the guests reflected on the many achievements of the ERC over the years, and how it has built a reputation as the 'go to' place for rigorous and independent research and insight on SME innovation, productivity and growth. The valuable role the centre has played in connecting policymakers and the positive, open relationships that have been developed with stakeholders were particularly highlighted. The ERC team look forward to further building on these excellent foundations to continue to produce high quality, policy-relevant and impactful research into the next decade. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Department for Education's (DFE) Skills and Vocational Education Policy Team Away Day |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • The ERC hosted and took part in the Department for Education's (DFE) Skills and Vocational Education Policy Team Away Day, which was held at The Shard. Stephen Roper presented an overview of the ERC and opened the event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC - BEIS Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • The ERC delivered a seminar on 13th March at BEIS focusing on how the latest research from the ERC might inform the proposals set out in the Industrial Strategy and help shape the post-Brexit economy. Three presentations covered the following themes: "How can we ensure Inclusive Innovation?" (Professor Stephen Roper); "High Performing Firms and Local Growth - What's the Deal?" (Professor Mark Hart); "The Future for Inward Investment in the UK" (Professor Nigel Driffield). The event was very well attended, with a packed room of BEIS colleagues from different teams, including the Innovation and Business Growth Directorates, all of whom are leading on various aspects of the Industrial Strategy and the Patient Capital Review. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC Research Paper Presentation at the UK Innovation Survey user group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • ERC papers were presented at the UK Innovation Survey user group meeting at BEIS on 20th March 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC Research Policy Briefing in the UK and Spain at Concordi in Seville |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 26-27 Sept - Stephen Roper presented results from an ERC Research Paper on policy effectiveness in the UK and Spain at Concordi in Seville. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC Research Presentation - Growth Heroes and the wider economy, entitled "Fast-growth firms and the wider economic impact in the UK" at the Regional Studies Association Annual conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Jun Du presented a paper based on ERC project 3 - Growth Heroes and the wider economy, entitled "Fast-growth firms and the wider economic impact in the UK" at the Regional Studies Association Annual conference, on 5 June 2017, Dublin. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC Research Presentations at the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship conference in Paris |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • ERC was well represented with research papers at the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship conference in Paris, where we organised a conference theme on business growth and helped lead workshops on ISBE's policy links and the Longitudinal Small Business Survey. Much of the discussion in the plenary sessions was about Brexit. The stand-out statistic was the 80,000 pages of treaty documentation which reportedly needs to be renegotiated. Congratulations to ERC colleagues Best Paper winners. o Social, Environmental and Ethical Enterprise Winner. ? Inconvenient Truth: Do UK Owner-Managers value Social and Environmental Goals? ? Jonathan Levie | Mark Hart o Family and Community Business Winner ? Keeping it in the Family: Paradoxes of Leadership in Family Firm Strategy and Survival ? Jane Glover | Kiran Trehan o With highly commended awarded to ? Business Support, Policy and Practice ? Getting transformational advice ? Kevin Mole | David North | Robyn Owens o Entrepreneurship in Minority Groups ? Migrant Entrepreneurship: Reflections on Research and Practice ? Monder Ram | Trevor Jones | Maria Villares-Varela |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | ERC Research Showcase |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • The ERC held a project workshop on 13th December, again at The Shard. The day was split into two sessions with the morning dedicated to discussions on findings from projects we have coming to a close in our current core research programme, and in the afternoon inception presentations for the new projects starting in early 2017. The event was attended by over 40 stakeholders, and generated interesting discussion and useful feedback to help inform the research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | ERC Research Showcase |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • The ERC Research Showcase event took place on June 20th at RSA House in London. The aim of this event was to share our research insights and ideas with our key stakeholders, and to engage in dialogue with them about both closing and new projects. During the morning session we presented findings from our closing research projects: Productivity and internationalisation in SMEs; Finance barriers to growth and productivity; An exploratory study linking SME data to the science base; An Integrated treatment of firm age, firm growth and job creation. In the afternoon session we launched four new projects, with stakeholders feeding their ideas to help us shape future research questions and approaches. The event attracted a quality audience of key stakeholders, including all of the ERC funders. Many valuable questions were raised, and the discussion will inform the presentation of findings as well as the focus of the new projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC Research Showcase 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | On 22nd February 2024 we held an ERC Research Showcase event at Aston University's Enterprise Hub at John Cadbury House. At the event, the team have discussed a range of new and ongoing research on themes including mental health, rural enterprise, export decisions and twin transitions. We also shared ERC Manifesto for small business growth and productivity. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | ERC research Presentation on export persistence in SMEs at the Academy of International Business (UK and Ireland) annual conference at the University of Reading |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Jim Love presented recent ERC research on export persistence in SMEs at the Academy of International Business (UK and Ireland) annual conference at the University of Reading. The paper, entitled "Persistence in exporting: cumulative and punctuated learning effects " (ERC Research Paper No 50), shows how an SMEs total previous exporting experience can help lengthen subsequent exporting spells, but that this can be compromised by the punctuated learning arising from a pattern of sporadic exporting.SMEs |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC research presentation at a British Council |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Stephen presented ERC research at a British Council funded event in Izmir, Turkey to an audience of academics and government planning staff (17th March). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC-HMRC workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • A second ERC-HMRC workshop to discuss how ERC might provide analysis and insights on SME growth was held at The Shard in November 2016, which also involved representatives from BEIS and DIT. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | ERC-HMRC workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Further ERC-HMRC workshops focussing on developing test and learn activities and reporting back on ERC research on trade and SME growth were held in March and early July. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Entrepreneurship Review Working Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Stephen has been involved with Prof Tim Dafforn's Entrepreneurship Review Working Group which has met regularly over the last few months. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Expert Steering Group meetings |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Vicki Belt and Stephen Roper both took part in Expert Steering Group meetings in January for a new research programme funded by the Design Council, taking forward last year's Design Economy research. The programme will explore what drives innovation and productivity in this sector, as well as exploring the supply of, and demand for, design skills in the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | IS consultation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Stephen was involved in discussions with BEIS representatives and others in a round table held at Warwick as part of the IS consultation (10th March). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Interim stakeholder meetings |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Interim stakeholder meetings were held for Projects 1 and 3 on September 15th at The Shard, with invited Advisory panel members and ERC researchers discussing the projects to date and future recommendations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Meeting with RBS to discuss new research on MSBs and GEM. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 14th September - Stephen Roper and Mark Hart met with RBS to discuss new research on MSBs and GEM. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Meeting with with NESTA to discuss collaborations on firm-level research and business support. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 1st August 2017 - Mark Hart met with NESTA to discuss collaborations on firm-level research and business support. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Participation in a ResPublica roundtable on the Industrial Strategy Green Paper |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart participated in a ResPublica roundtable on the Industrial Strategy Green Paper on 6th February. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Podcast Episode 18: Supporting better management in small businesses |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In this episode of Exploring Enterprise, the podcast series from the Enterprise Research Centre, Professor Mark Hart, Deputy Director of the ERC is joined by Manny Athwal who is an entrepreneur and the founder and current CEO of the School of Coding, and Ian McLaughlan, who is Director of Business Growth West Midlands, a new business support service to reflect on the important theme of how to support better management in small businesses. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation at Regional Studies Association winter 2016 conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • ERC's Enrico Vanino attended the Regional Studies Association winter 2016 conference presenting some results from the ERC project on the spillover effects of Growth Heroes on the wider UK economy. In particular, he focused on exposing the economic impact of fast growing firms in regions and industrial sectors, highlighting the externalities of the high growth phenomenon on the productivity and employment growth of surrounding firms. The 2016 Winter Conference of the Regional Studies Association presented a timely opportunity to discuss these issues, to identify the new research objectives, and to consider the challenges facing policymakers and practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation at a seminar run by the Institute for Public Policy for Wales at the University of Cardiff |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • In November 2016 Stephen Roper contributed to a seminar run by the Institute for Public Policy for Wales at the University of Cardiff. The event focussed on policy initiatives which could be taken to stimulate productivity growth. Following the event, a blog- Knowledge diffusion, innovation and productivity - changing the game in Wales was posted on the ERC website. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation at the Changing global power balance: Challenges for European firms conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | At the Changing global power balance: Challenges for European firms conference in Lisbon ERC Research Fellow Panos Kyriakopoulos presented a paper providing empirical evidence on how de-internationalisation has disrupted the global supply chain of internationalised SMEs during the pandemic at the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) Paper Development Workshop. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation at the DRUID innovation conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • ERC research on externalities from innovation was presented at the DRUID innovation conference in New York, June 13th 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Presentation at the Innovation & Research Caucus Early Career Researcher conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | ERC Research Fellow Panos Kyriakopoulos presented his review article 'Developing an integrated framework of research on rural innovation' at the Innovation & Research Caucus Early Career Researcher conference held at Oxford Brookes University. His paper was honoured with the 'Engaged Scholarship Award', which includes an editorial mentorship opportunity with the possibility of publishing a Fresh Research Perspective Notes in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation at the Women and Enterprise Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Karen Bonner provided an update on recent trends and research at the Pink Shoe Club in an insightful and inspiring afternoon event at the Shard on 26 October 2016 focussed on women's enterprise. Discussion focussed on the opportunities for growth and policy and advocacy initiatives which could be taken to promote women's enterprise. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation att a WEConnect International Network Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Stephen Roper talked at a WEConnect International Network Event on Monday 19th September. His presentation drew on work with Karen Bonner and focused on gendered differences in ambition among early stage and established entrepreneurs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation in a BIS/DCLG LEP Network Data Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Stephen Roper, Vicki Belt and Karen Bonner participated in a BIS/DCLG LEP Network Data Workshop on Monday 26th September. Stephen Roper gave a presentation on four key data sources that are well used by the ERC and of great potential to LEPs |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation in a discussion event on 'The living standards challenge facing the West Midlands' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • In December Vicki Belt took part in a discussion event on 'The living standards challenge facing the West Midlands' hosted by the Resolution Foundation in Birmingham. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation of some of the most recent results from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor at West Midlands Venturefest |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Karen Bonner and Stephen Roper presented some of the most recent results from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor at West Midlands Venturefest on 23rd June. Levels of entrepreneurial activity in the UK remain high relative to the pre-2008 period with a notable increase in start-up activity among older individuals. Levels of opportunity based start-up activity among migrants are significantly higher than those of long-term UK residents. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation of the findings at the 14th Annual International Industrial Organization Conference in Boston |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ERC staff also presented the findings at the 14th Annual International Industrial Organization Conference in Boston. These are among the most prestigious international conferences gathering thousands of researchers from around the world, in particular for topics related to economic geography, urban economics, knowledge externalities, industrial organization, local innovation and industrial policies. The presentations focused on the implications of an increase in the incidence of fast-growth firms for the employment and productivity growth of non-fast-growth companies operating in the same region and industry, highlighting the different learning and competition effects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Presentation of the main results of ERC project 3 - Growth Heroes and the wider economy at the American Association of Geographers 2017 Annual Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Jun and Enrico presented the main results of ERC project 3 - Growth Heroes and the wider economy at the American Association of Geographers 2017 Annual Meeting in Boston. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Presentation of the outcome of ERC Project 1 - SME- University links and their innovation and productivity benefits, at University College Cork |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Dr Areti Gkypali presented the outcome of ERC Project 1 - SME- University links and their innovation and productivity benefits, at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland. The presentation focused on the moderating role of geography in driving business engagement with Universities as innovation partners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Presentation on Innovation and Productivity to the 'Future of the Welsh Economy: Competitiveness, Governance Structures and the Role of Political Leadership' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Stephen Roper talked on Innovation and Productivity to the 'Future of the Welsh Economy: Competitiveness, Governance Structures and the Role of Political Leadership' in Cardiff on the 6th of October. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation to a group of stakeholders in the Tees Valley on the subject of 'Scaling Business Growth' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Mark presented to a group of stakeholders in the Tees Valley on the subject of 'Scaling Business Growth' in February. The event was hosted by Professor Jane Turner (PVC for Enterprise & Business Engagement) of the University of Teesside. Mark shared his thoughts on the Scale-up agenda and discussed a series of actions designed to build a growth pipeline of businesses. ERC will be working with Jane's team at the University of Teesside in the next few months to capture good practice to form a case study of successful local university-business engagement and impact. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Presentation to the Disruptive Businesses unit of BEIS |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • On 23rd January, Jun Du and Enrico Vanino presented the outcome of Project 3 to the Disruptive Businesses unit of BEIS. The presentation focused the analysis of the economic impact of high-growth firms on the employment and productivity growth of non-fast-growing firms in their regions and industrial sectors. After the presentation the participants had some time to talk about the work and analysis carried on by the disruptive business unit, discussing possible synergies and cooperation opportunities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Research grant - building relationships between Britain and Greece |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | ERC Research Fellow Panagiotis Kyriakopoulos has secured funding from the British Embassy in Athens for a project which aims to facilitate the establishment of new partnerships and foster meaningful interactions among managers and owners of science parks in both Greece and the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Stakeholders Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Vicki has held a range of productive meetings with current and potential future stakeholders during this period, keeping them up to date with ERC research and gaining a deeper understanding of research and policy priorities. This includes meetings with BEIS, The British Business Bank, Innovate UK, the UK Productivity Council, the National Centre for Universities and Business, Scottish Enterprise and Investors in People. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| Description | Stakeholders' meetings |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Vicki has started useful dialogue with a number of individuals and organisations over the last few months, with an eye on widening the impact of the ERC. Highlights have included discussions with Universities UK about a potential joint seminar to take place later this year, and developing ideas with the British Chambers of Commerce about potential joint working on roundtables at the Conservative and Labour Party Conferences in the Autumn. Vicki has also met with the Alliance for Useful Evidence at Nesta, who have a remit to champion the use of evidence in policy making. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Supporting investment in Scotland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Eugene Golubova and Stephen Roper led a working session with Scottish Enterprise staff in Glasgow. The session was part of a project which ERC are undertaking for Scottish Enterprise on the barriers, enablers and drivers of business investment. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Talk at APPG on Women and Enterprise |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart attended the APPG on Women and Enterprise on 30th January at the Houses of Parliament and contributed to the discussion on data and evidence. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Trade policy forum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Jun Du, Director of the Centre for Business Prosperity who chaired the Trade policy forum explored the role of international trade in stimulating economic growth, the various channels through which it might do so, and the role of policy in strengthening and supporting those channels. Halima discussed the evidence base on the links between trade, innovation and productivity, and explored the policy implications of these links. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Trade policy forum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | ERC Research Fellow Halima Jibril contributed to a panel discussion during the Trade Policy forum held by the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CTIP) ,in collaboration with The Productivity Institute |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Workshop on university-business collaboration |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 12th Sept 2017 - Stephen Roper was part of a panel on university-business collaboration at a workshop funded by the British Council (London). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | a 'pilot' project with the LEP Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | • Mark has been leading a 'pilot' project with the LEP Network and 8 individual LEPs including North East LEP, Thames Valley Berkshire, Cumbria, Greater Lincolnshire, Liverpool City Region, Greater Cambridge and Peterborough and Leeds City Region. The project aims to demonstrate the value of a central resource to provide the LEP Network and individual LEPs with better enterprise data access and evaluation support. Following discussions with BEIS [Gavin Dollin (Digital) and Karen Leigh (Cities and Local Growth)] this has now been expanded to include analysis of the 39 Growth Hub CRMs and will report in September 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | a Brexit Summit meeting with the British Business Bank |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • ERC held a Brexit Summit meeting with the British Business Bank at The Shard in September, focusing on the theme of 'Sustaining & Developing SME Growth in a Period of Uncertainty'. The event was attended by over 20 senior policy makers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | a Fellow of the British Academy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | ? Mike Wright has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy in recognition of his research on entrepreneurial ownership mobility and finance. Mike joins only a handful of Fellows of the British Academy in the business and management field. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | a blog for the ESRC entitled 'Preparing for Brexit at the local level', |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart was invited to write a blog for the ESRC entitled 'Preparing for Brexit at the local level', and was published on 27th January 2017. This was based on the ERC's UK Local Growth Dashboard released at the Annual Conference on 30th November. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | a discussion on SMEs and Brexit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Mark joint hosted a discussion on SMEs and Brexit in partnership with the Industry Parliament Trust (IPT) at a diner in the House of Commons on 10th July. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | a guest speaker at the University of Navarra |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Kevin Mole was a guest speaker at the University of Navarra speaking on 'New small firm growth: understanding the phenomenon and exploring policies that may support it'. The event held on December 16th aimed to offer an overview of entrepreneurship in Europe in general, analyse whether/how entrepreneurial activity may contribute to industrial dynamism, economic development and growth whilst understanding the phenomenon of new firm growth and its impact on economic development as well as exploring policies that may support it. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | a judge for this year's UK Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Vicki Belt was a judge for this year's UK Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards, taking part in the judge's panel held on 10th January. The awards are in their fourth year, and are sponsored by the Citi Foundation and Responsible Finance. They celebrate the economic and social impact of responsible finance providers, and champion outstanding microentrepreneurs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | a member of the BIS Strategic Advisory Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Steve Roper is a member of the BIS Strategic Advisory Group on Smart Specialisation and Science Innovation Audits; |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | a member of the Delivering Value Taskforce |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Steve Roper has been a member of the Delivering Value Taskforce being run by the Association of Business Schools to investigate how business schools can maximise regional value added. This project is now in its final stages and publication is due in September 2016. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | a member of the Steering Group for the Longitudinal Small Business Survey |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Stephen Roper is a member of the Steering Group for the Longitudinal Small Business Survey; |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | a workshop jointly with ISBE on policy choices |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 26th July 2017 - ERC hosted a workshop jointly with ISBE on policy choices between supporting start-ups and growth businesses. Stephen Roper presented some recent ERC research on high growth episodes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | act as a peer reviewer for the central evaluation team of BEIS. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart continues to act as a peer reviewer for the central evaluation team of BEIS. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | active member of the Growing Businesses Board of the GBS LEP |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | • Mark continues to be an active member of the Growing Businesses Board of the GBS LEP and this provides a useful platform for ERC research to inform the strategic thinking of the LEP. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | address the Digital Leaders Group of the LEPs |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Mark was invited to address the Digital Leaders Group of the LEPs on 11th May at Bucks LEP on the work of the ERC and to discuss data and evidence issues. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | advice to the Columbian government's innovation policy unit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Steve Roperprovided advice to the Columbian government's innovation policy unit as part of a project organised by the World Bank |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | an ISBE trustee to join the taskforce behind the latest Chartered ABS report on how business schools deliver value to local and regional economies |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Business schools supporting entrepreneurship and small businesses across the UK- Stephen Roper was invited as an ISBE trustee to join the taskforce behind the latest Chartered ABS report on how business schools deliver value to local and regional economies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | bespoke analysis for the HMT Patient Capital Review team |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Mark has been undertaking bespoke analysis for the HMT Patient Capital Review team and, in particular, undertook a data-linking exercise with the ONS and Beauhurst data to understand the links between equity growth finance and firm performance. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | co-authors in a joint GEM-WEF report on 'Europe's Hidden Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial Employee Activity and Competitiveness in Europe' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart and Jonathan Levie were co-authors in a joint GEM-WEF report on 'Europe's Hidden Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial Employee Activity and Competitiveness in Europe' published on 22nd December 2016. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | contribution as an Expert panel member on the Barclays Entrepreneurs Index Report Volume 8. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart contributed as an Expert panel member on the Barclays Entrepreneurs Index Report Volume 8. The Barclays Entrepreneurs Index is a barometer of the entrepreneurial environment and activity in the UK. It uses a set of data indicators to track the UK's performance at each stage of the entrepreneurial lifecycle - starting, growing and exiting a business - on an annual basis. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | contribution of analysis and commentary to a FT Special Feature |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart and Karen Bonner contributed analysis and commentary to a FT Special Feature written by Jonathan Moules, and published on 4th October entitled 'Wanted: more ventures fit for the fast track - High-growth companies create jobs and wealth. How can we encourage more of them?' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | contribution to a special feature of the ESRC 'Society Now' magazine on Brexit with an article entitled: 'An Entrepreneurial Perspective: What will be the effect of Brexit on small-to-medium sized UK businesses?' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart contributed to a special feature of the ESRC 'Society Now' magazine on Brexit with an article entitled: 'An Entrepreneurial Perspective: What will be the effect of Brexit on small-to-medium sized UK businesses?' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | contribution to an article on Serial Entrepreneurs published by the Guardian Small Business Network online 'A great black book': how to exploit contacts for global success,' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart contributed to an article on Serial Entrepreneurs published by the Guardian Small Business Network online 'A great black book': how to exploit contacts for global success,' published on 23rd December 2016. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | discussions with the FT about their forthcoming Special Report on small business and entrepreneurship in the UK - use of ERC data and insights |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | 30th August 2017 - Mark Hart had discussions with the FT about their forthcoming Special Report on small business and entrepreneurship in the UK - use of ERC data and insights. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | event on the LSBS Wave 2 pre-publication results |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • ERC and BEIS jointly organised and hosted an event on the LSBS Wave 2 pre-publication results at the Shard on the 19th June. Around 100 participants attended on the day, with a good mix of key ERC stakeholders present. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | evidence presentation on the first 5 years of 10,000 Small Businesses UK at on 'Why Small Businesses Matter: Amplifying and Scaling Small Businesses' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart presented evidence on the first 5 years of 10,000 Small Businesses UK at on 'Why Small Businesses Matter: Amplifying and Scaling Small Businesses' in central Birmingham on Wednesday 5th October. The event was hosted by Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses UK (GS10KSB), together with the ScaleUp Institute and Aston Centre for Growth. The economic impact report was published on 14th November and he contributed to an article in the FT on the report. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | keynote speaker at the Chief Economic Development Officers' Society (CEDOS) meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Mark was a keynote speaker at the Chief Economic Development Officers' Society (CEDOS) meeting in London on 19th May - he was invited to talk on "Perspectives on High Growth, Scale-Ups and Innovation" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | keynote speech at the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | ? Mike Wright delivered the keynote speech at the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference organised by the Glendonbrook Institute of Enterprise Development, Loughborough University |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | lead speaker at a House of Commons breakfast event on US exporting organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Trust |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Go West - Export opportunities for UK firms in the US: Building on ERC research on exporting, Stephen Roper was the lead speaker at a House of Commons breakfast event on US exporting organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Trust. The discussion focussed on US market opportunities and some of the barriers faced by smaller firms in the US. Export support agencies were encouraged to provide more support for SMEs in 'friendly' markets such as the US. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | meeting with CLG and the CEO of the LEP Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart met with CLG and the CEO of the LEP Network on 19th January to discuss ERC support to develop the evidence base around SMEs and growth. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | meeting with the Growth Group at HMRC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 11th July 2017 - ERC held a further meeting with the Growth Group at HMRC along with representatives of BEIS and DIT |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | meeting with the Open Innovation Unit at the Cabinet Office |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Vicki and Stephen Roper met with the Open Innovation Unit at the Cabinet Office on 4th April. The Open Innovation Unit is focused on generating and developing better partnerships between government and external experts. We discussed the key areas in which ERC has expertise and interest, and identified potential ways to work together in future. Key themes of interest for the Unit which resonate with the ERC are self-employment/innovation aspects of the future of work, and the economic impact of universities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | meeting with the communications team at the British Chambers of Commerce to discuss potential areas for joint working in the future. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 18th September - Vicki met with the communications team at the British Chambers of Commerce to discuss potential areas for joint working in the future. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | meetings with NESTA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Mark has held a number of meetings with NESTA to discuss a joint programme of work on firm-level analysis and policy evaluation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | monthly meetings with the BEIS Business and Local Growth team |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • In September we held the first in a new set of monthly meetings with the BEIS Business and Local Growth team, to share ERC expertise and insights, and help shape the team's future research strategy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | panel discussion on achieving impact at the ABS Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Stephen contributed to a panel discussion on achieving impact at the ABS Conference in Birmingham University (19th March 2017). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | presentation at BEIS |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • 'Innovation and place' was the focus of an invited presentation at BEIS on 7th of June 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | presentation at an event in Beer Sheeva, Israel on innovation centres |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • ERC research on market failures was an invited presentation at an event in Beer Sheeva, Israel on innovation centres (28th April 2017). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | presentation of a chapter from his PhD thesis: "Outsourced R&D and export performance: resource optimization or market-seeking?" at the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Enrico Vanino presented a chapter from his PhD thesis: "Outsourced R&D and export performance: resource optimization or market-seeking?" at the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference organised by the Glendonbrook Institute of Enterprise Development, Loughborough University. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | presentation on the theme of 'Communicating research for impact' at the Innovation & Research Caucus Early Career Researcher mini-conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Vicki Belt gave a presentation on the theme of 'Communicating research for impact' at the Innovation & Research Caucus Early Career Researcher mini-conference held at Oxford Brookes University on 17th and 18th January. The presentation set out some key principles for the effective communication of academic work to non-academic audiences, drawing on experiences at the ERC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | presention the ERC research paper 38-Firm's innovation objectives and knowledge acquisition strategies: a comparative analysis respectively at Keele University Management School, at the DRUID conference in Copenhagen and at the Academy of Management Annual meeting in Anaheim. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | • Bettina Becker presented the ERC research paper 38-Firm's innovation objectives and knowledge acquisition strategies: a comparative analysis respectively at Keele University Management School, at the DRUID conference in Copenhagen and at the Academy of Management Annual meeting in Anaheim. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | roundtable event at the Conservative Party Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • On 3rd October the ERC will hold its first ever event at a political party conference, hosting a roundtable event at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester entitled: 'How can we drive better innovation and productivity in UK small businesses'? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | stakeholder consultation exercise |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • Throughout March and early April, as noted above, the ERC undertook a major stakeholder consultation exercise. This involved meetings/conversations with 72 stakeholders from 47 separate organisations and bodies including BEIS, InnovateUK, the British Business Bank, devolved administrations and LEPs. This gave us an excellent opportunity to discuss research and policy priorities with these individuals and organisations, and we have used the insights to develop new relationships and potential future research plans. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | strategy sessions with New Anglia LEP and Tees Valley LEP |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | • Mark Hart has had detailed strategy sessions with New Anglia LEP and Tees Valley LEP following the launch of the UK Local Growth Dashboard in November 2016. These will continue throughout 2017, and will be written up as case studies and published by the ERC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | the Board of Trustees of the Social Research Association (SRA) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | • In January Vicki Belt was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Social Research Association (SRA), a professional membership organisation which aims to promote high quality standards in social research. Vicki was appointed to provide expertise on improving the links between policy and social research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | the Cities and Local Growth Policy Teams' Away Day |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | • The ERC hosted and took part in the Cities and Local Growth Policy Teams' Away Day, which was held at The Shard on Thursday 12th January. Stephen Roper and Mark Hart presented ERC research on innovation and SME growth, and took part in stimulating discussion with the policy teams on the themes of the Government's new Industrial Strategy and place. The Cities and local Growth Unit have indicated they would like a further workshop to discuss ERC insights on the Industrial Strategy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | working with the Scale-Up taskforce contributing to sub-groups |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | • Mark is working with the Scale-Up taskforce contributing to sub-groups advising on "Use of Data and Evidence" providing the most recent evidence on high performing firms and "Access to Markets" discussing public procurement, supply chains and exports. He presented ERC research at the first meeting of the Taskforce on 21st March chaired by the Minister for Small Business, Margot James MP. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | workshop at BEIS on business support evidence and priorities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 6th Sept 2017 - Stephen Roper and Mark Hart participated in a workshop at BEIS on business support evidence and priorities hosted by Andrew Patterson and involving the What Works Centre, NESTA and policy advisors from No. 10. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |