Baseline Report 3: The Impact of Participating in the External Committee: The Perspective of the External Committee (EC) Volunteer Members Who Are Representatives of Organisations in the Formal Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

This report discusses impacts of the EU Interreg funded programme Accelerating Women’s Enterprise (AWE) from the perspective of the External Committee (EC) volunteer members who are representatives of organisations in the formal entrepreneurial ecosystem. This group of individuals, from the project regions of France and the UK, undertook to support the multi-partner AWE project funded by the EU Interreg, over the period 2019-2021. Their responsibility was to support the social innovation project, acting as critical friends in the creation of interventions that support disadvantaged women entrepreneurs and leveraging their social capital to test and disseminate findings. EC members reported impact for themselves personally, in relation to the organisations that they represented, as well as wider and future intended impacts:
EC members also suggested changes that are needed in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to support female entrepreneurs with additional disadvantages, including greater government involvement, role modelling, partnerships within the public sector and access to finance. There is also recognition of the impact of Covid on women entrepreneurs, with the opportunity to explore and understand further those who experience additional disadvantages (related to, for example, income, education, location, age, ethnicity, disability and caring responsibility). In
order to maximise the impacts of the AWE project, members of the EC recognise that there is a need to disseminate the research and sharing methods (training, mentoring and bootcamps) beyond the entrepreneurial ecosystem actors who are already gender aware. To leverage the EC members’ strengths and intentions for ongoing commitment, we recommend maintaining and enhancing connections between them, enhancing links with policy makers and advancing the cause of disadvantaged women entrepreneurs.