Leonardo Da Vinci Partnership Project

The aim of this Leonardo Partnership Project is to facilitate the development of a model for business innovation courses for women in science, engineering and technology. By creating a model for business innovation courses for women, the consortium wants to address the need to encourage and to enlighten the dormant source of European women in technological business development.  Thus a platform like this is needed, to fully realize and share the potential of companies, founded by women, based on female values and intuition.

The project will be built on the experience and outcome of the earlier entrepreneur initiative, AUDUR, which was conducted by Reykjavik University in the year 2000-2003. The initiative was constructed to encourage entrepreneurship among women in Iceland.  By building on this initiative and by creating a powerful consortium, specialising in entrepreneurship, business development, technology, consultancy, personal leadership and gender equity, the consortium expects a result that will encourage entrepreneurship among European women innovators. The consortium will share their knowledge, experience and network to complete a model that will highlight the specific training and support that this target group needs.

It is the consortium´s intention that the results of the project will be used to run vocational training for European women to support them to establish a business.

 The Rationale

Based on findings from the report Evaluation on Policy: Promotion of Women Innovators and Entrepreneurship (European Commission, 2008), Europe is facing several problems due to lack of women´s participation in technology and entrepreneurship.  The study claims that “women's intellectual potential and their contribution to Europe's competitiveness are not being maximised in the field of technology and entrepreneurship”.  According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor study there is a systematic difference between men and woman entrepreneurial activity and it is claimed that the propensity is gendered (Minniti et al, 2005).

The AUDUR initiative was constructed in such a way that it was to reconcile many of the problems facing initiatives targeting a disadvantaged group, such as women. It is argued that the outcome provides important input on how to design initiatives that are intended to encourage women entrepreneurship.

The initiative´s overall purpose was to increase women´s participation in the Icelandic Business environment. The philosophy was to think big, unleash the power of women and apply best practices to increase the motivation and skills of women to start their own businesses. Now, this methodology, experience and outcome will be used as a base to find out how it relates to encourage women innovators in Europe to start their own business.

This project is built to support women in Europe to establish a business in science, engineering and technology and by that to encourage women to take leadership equally to male in the industry. Its exigency is high whereas only 8.3% of patents granted by the European Patent Office are awarded to women. Furthermore only 20.3% of businesses started in Europe with venture capital belong to female entrepreneurs and only 5 -15% of high-tech business in Europe is owned by women (European Commission, Evaluation on Policy, 2008).  These numbers underline the need for support, motivation and formal runway to actuate women in this field.  Furthermore, it is stressed in research made by Catalyst in 2008 (Women in Technology: Maximizing Talent, Minimizing Barriers), that lack of role models, not having a mentor, sponsor or champion to make accomplishments known and being excluded from important networks of decision-makers, are among the barriers that continue to exist for women in technology.

Since the general issues facing women appear to transcend borders, it is imperative to create a European model that is intended to encourage women innovators to start their own business. Recent research claim that capitalising on the talents of women is a business imperative, it can lead to sustainable change and shrink the talent gap. It is especially important in the field of science and engineering where the need for talent is already not keeping pace with demand (Catalyst, 2002).

Education and support will help female management of new entities to bring their ideas to life. O'Sullivan´s research from 2002, claims that managers lack know-how to carry ideas to market because of poor leadership, organization, communication, empowerment and knowledge management.  By creating a model for professional innovation courses, specially aimed at the need of women in technology, it is possible to increase the success rate of bringing new entities to market. Bringing together trainers with hands-on expertise in this field of VET will ensure that transfer of experiences can take place in order to build a model that is applicable across Europe and across different target groups of women, which the different partner organisations represent.

The Project Objectives and strategy

The project's main goal is to facilitate the development of a model for business innovation courses for women in science, engineering and technology, based on the previous conducted AUDUR initiative. The methodology was successful and will be used as a basis for this project with special focus on the needs for training, encouragement and support for educated and experienced women innovators in Europe.

When creating such a woman targeted course model for encouraging entrepreneurship, the main challenge is to avoid substitution and to support an ongoing learning process of making the norms and assumptions of entrepreneurship less gendered. To achieve the project´s main goal the consortium will gain from the knowledge, experience and strong network of its partners. The main subjects to be discussed and declared at the meetings are:

1. How can the structure of AUDUR initiative be used for this target group

2. Reviewing other initiatives aiming at encouraging women entrepreneurship

3. Analyse the entrepreneurial environment for women in science, engineering and technology in Europe.

4. Analyse entrepreneurial gender discrimination

5. Analyse the main barriers preventing women innovators to start their own business.

6. What special training and support does this target group need that is different to others?

7. Create a model for training and support - What kind of modules are needed to motivate women innovators to start their own company?

The consortium will have regular meetings where the main subjects will be discussed. During the 2 years, there will be 6 meetings focused on different topics. All partners will actively participate at the meetings and with the most relevant staff member according to topic areas. Each partner has one agent which overviews the cooperation on behalf of its organizations. To share information, all partners have access to secured workspace but from the beginning of the cooperation the consortium will emphasise the importance of effective communication processes, trust and respect.

The target group will be integrated for reviewing and criticizing, according to its needs for training, encouragement and support. The target group will be reached through the cooperation with WiTEC – European Association for women in science, engineering and technology, as by some of the other partners involved.  When all information has been gathered the consortium will create a model that can be used as a platform for business innovation courses.

The European added value

Research demonstrates that only 20,3%  of businesses started in Europe with venture capital belong to women and furthermore, only 5 – 15% of high-tech business in Europe is owned by women. According to resent research it is revealed that companies that are owned or managed by women gain higher long term return. By creating a model for business innovation courses for women, the consortium wants to address the need to encourage and to enlighten the dormant source of European women in technological business development. As research has shown, the competitive advantage of nations is founded on training and education.  Thus a platform like this is needed in Europe, to fully realize and share the potential of companies, founded by women, based on female values and intuition.

Increased cooperation between different institutions in Europe is important to gain more knowledge of the different factors that affect innovative women entrepreneurship. This project is to improve the quality and increase the volume of mobility throughout Europe with people involved in the initial vocational education and training in the continuing training. By bringing together the specialized knowledge within different organizations in Europe, the consortium expects to be able to adapt the model, that has previously be used with great success, to train and support women innovators in Europe. The model is to be used within Europe to encourage female entrepreneurs to start their own business.

The Impact

This partnership project is imperative for all stakeholders, but at primarily for the women this project is targeting and their society. As mentioned before, it is the consortium´s hope that the model will be used within Europe to motivate and encourage all women, working in the field of science, engineering and technology, to start their own business.  The end result would be a number of new innovative business start-ups run by European women and ensuring that women are not lost from the labour market when leaving for caring responsibilities, for example, but offered alternative ways of being economically active e.g. through entrepreneurship. In Europe, there are many trained women in SET who are absent from the labour market as a result of a long hours culture or lack of flexibility in many SET companies. Providing a model for motivation of these women to start up a business utilising their SET knowledge would therefore benefit both the economic situation of the women and society in terms of promoting greater numbers of women to operate SET companies.  To achieve that, the consortium finds it imperative to have the target group involved at all stages to ensure its relevancy to the main target group. Furthermore, the model will be pan-European made, but flexible to be adapted within each European country.

This project will also have imperative impact on the partners involved. All partners share the experience of working on gender issues and/or entrepreneurship and are working on this project with the intention of benefit from the cooperation by great value of information sharing, knowledge and networking. In addition to previous projects, conducted by each partner, it is the partner´s expectation that this project will affect the future numbers of innovative business start ups founded by women.  Additional impact on participating organisations will be increased access to others across Europe with expertise in this area to share knowledge and transfer ideas of how to engage and motivate women to start up SET businesses.

For further information please contact Kristine Helen Falgren, kristine@hr.is