Baseline Report 1 - Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in France and the UK: The perspectives of disadvantaged female entrepreneurs and stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem

This report explores the perspectives of disadvantaged female entrepreneurs and stakeholders in the official entrepreneurial ecosystem in the UK and France from 2019 to 2020. In the UK and France, the proportion of women-led businesses is considerably lower throughout all stages of business development in comparison to male-led businesses and if the imbalance were redressed there would be significant contribution to the economy. Typical barriers to entrepreneurship include lack of finance, caring roles and cultural challenges. However, there may be different barriers for women with different needs and intersections of disadvantage such as income, location, age, ethnicity and disability, which present extra challenges for women entrepreneurs. This report therefore examines the barriers to and enablers of female entrepreneurship, particular in relation to their disadvantage. This study defines disadvantaged female entrepreneurs as women who, because of their gender, physical and mental disabilities or impairments, poverty, socio-economic deprivation, race, migrant status, age, geographic location and/or educational and skill attainment, face challenges and barriers in their entrepreneurial endeavours. The report also examines entrepreneurial ecosystems. We define entrepreneurial ecosystems as a network of interconnected actors and/or organizations, which consists of a diverse set of interdependent stakeholders within a geographic location that impact upon the formation and trajectory of entrepreneurship (see Cohen, 2006). This report focusses on the official ecosystem, that is a set of interconnected entrepreneurial actors (both potential and existing), organisations involved in entrepreneurship (e.g. firms, venture capitalists, business angels, banks), institutions (universities, public sector agencies, financial bodies) and entrepreneurial processes (e.g. the business birth rate, numbers of high growth firms, number of entrepreneurs, levels of entrepreneurial attrition), which coalesce to connect, mediate and govern the performance within the local entrepreneurial environment (see Mason & Brown, 2014). This is distinguished from the unofficial entrepreneurial ecosystem, which involves informal networks and actors (e.g. family and friends) that may or may not enable the formation and trajectory of entrepreneurship. The report also provides findings on the unofficial ecosystem.