The Scottish Government will consider proposals to support more women into entrepreneurship, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said, following publication of a wide-ranging independent review.
The Pathways: A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship report was commissioned by Finance Secretary Kate Forbes to identify ways to unlock untapped potential, close the gender gap and boost Scotland’s economy.
The review - led by Ana Stewart, an entrepreneur and investor, and co-authored with Mark Logan, chief entrepreneur to the Scottish Government - makes 31 recommendations.
The steps include:
- providing start-up training and support in a range of pop-up locations to help more women, and other primary care givers, access services;
- integrating entrepreneurial education into schools and further education;
- clarifying existing access pathways into entrepreneurship;
- improving access to start-up and growth finance; and
- tracking and measuring progress towards full representation in entrepreneurship.
Sturgeon said: “I welcome Ana Stewart and Mark Logan’s work in delivering a powerful review of the barriers facing women in entrepreneurship in Scotland and presenting a compelling set of recommendations aimed at removing them.
“The review’s findings are challenging, but underline the need to tackle the root-causes, as well as the immediate barriers, of this inequality.
“Fully realising the entrepreneurial potential of women in Scotland will not only promote greater equality in our society, it will also deliver significant benefits for the economy.
“The Scottish Government will respond quickly to the review as a whole, and its recommendations.”
Review chair Stewart said: “This review has, through a combination of extensive stakeholder engagement and robust data analysis, revealed that women face many significant barriers to entrepreneurship.
“Only one in five businesses in Scotland are female-led, while start-ups founded by women received only 2% of overall investment capital in the last five years.
“By taking a root cause and effect approach, our recommendations focus on dramatically increasing female participation rates to drive a vibrant and fairer entrepreneurial economy.”
The First Minister welcomed the publication of the review on a visit to Roslin Innovation Centre, where she met Ishani Malhotra, chief executive of Carcinotech, and Dr Kate Cameron, who founded Cytochroma.
Stewart told Insider that the next steps will “revolve around the implementation of the recommendations“.
Catherine McWilliam, nations director for Scotland at Institute of Directors Scotland, said: “Training, access to support and cross sector collaboration are at the centre of IoD’s mission, and so it is heartening to see these reflected in the recommendations.”
Jackie Waring, chair of AccelerateHER and founder of Investing Women Angels, commented: “Ana and Mark have done an excellent job capturing and analysing the findings and recommendations generated by this substantial review which covers the current inequities underlying the significant underrepresentation of women entrepreneurs.
“This includes the currently huge gulf of external investment going into male-led companies compared to those run by women and, more profoundly, the root causes which are preventing a greater number of female-founded businesses from getting off the ground and ultimately flourishing.
“The report is significant in the number of important recommendations it sets out to address this chronic problem.
“In our view, it is vital that all of these points are embraced by the Scottish Government, both the easier-to-embrace policy solutions as well as addressing the deeper causes, by focusing on female entrepreneurship within the education system and tackling unconscious bias within society which adversely impacts on growth opportunities for many female-founded companies.“
Niki Mckenzie, joint managing director of Archangels, added: “This report is a significant milestone, which highlights fundamental issues preventing women’s ability to maximise their potential in business in Scotland.
“The fact that female-founded start-ups received only 2% of overall investment capital over the past five years, demonstrates there is something essentially wrong with the system and it’s important that we understand the underlying root causes of gender bias in entrepreneurship.
“This is not just about creating a fairer economy, it’s about cultivating all of the talent we’ve got here in Scotland which, in turn, will increase our entrepreneurial capacity and drive economic growth.”
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