• "Small Business Act" for Europe
• Improving the business environment
• Promoting Entrepreneurship
• Access to markets
• Facts and figures
• Good practices in SME policy

Encouraging women entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs - people willing to take the risks and make significant commitments to get a new business off the ground or build on an existing one - are not common enough in Europe. For many reasons, not enough Europeans see running a small business as sufficiently more attractive than working as an employee of a firm, large or small, or in a public organisation. These reasons apply as much to women as to men, but there are certain additional factors which make entrepreneurship an even less attractive or viable option for women (in addition to those factors which count against women in all sections of the labour market).

Although there has been an encouraging upturn in women running businesses in the past decade or so, much more needs to be done to overcome the specific factors which discourage women in particular from starting or taking over small firms. Today women entrepreneurs in Europe are only 30% of all entrepreneurs. And even more importantly, we have to create an environment in which those women who do run a small business can more easily grow their firms.

Female Entrepreneurship Ambassadors

On 5 October the inauguration of the European Network of Female Entrepreneurship Ambassadors took place in Stockholm, Sweden. The event organised by the European Commission in collaboration with the Swedish Presidency took place at Stockholm’s Town hall.  130 successful European businesswomen are kicking off a campaign to encourage more women to become entrepreneurs and start their own companies. Appointed by Commissioner Vladimír Špidla these successful business women will act as Entrepreneurship Ambassadors.

10 ambassadors, one per participating country, received their diplomas by HRH, the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden who supported the event.

During the induction session in the afternoon the ambassadors had the opportunity to hear from the Commission what their role will be and discuss with Swedish and British ambassadors about their own experience of being an ambassador of female entrepreneurship.

The Female Entrepreneurship Ambassadors will serve as role models and highlight the role that women can play in creating jobs and promoting competitiveness.

One of their tasks will be to promote entrepreneurship in schools, universities, community groups and the media, aiming to inspire women and young girls to set up their own businesses. Women generally choose to start and manage firms in industries such as retail and services to people that are often perceived as being less crucial to economic development and the knowledge economy. The Ambassadors will demonstrate, through their own experience, that women can be successful in each and every sector. Telling their own stories will help to raise confidence in setting up and creating successful businesses in all areas.

The ambassadors, from Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden, were selected through the Enterprise Europe Network, an EU-backed business support network. At the end of the year, the European Commission will issue a second call for nominations to the network from the remaining EU countries.

The 2008 Small Business Act which aims to improve the overall approach to entrepreneurship called for more women in businesses. Indeed,compared with men, fewer women in the EU are self-employed and even fewer start businesses or express the ambition to do so. Today female entrepreneurs constitute only 34.4% of self-employed and only 20% in industry.

Promoting opportunities

Measures to encourage women to give greater consideration to running small firms, and to make it easier for them to do so, can take many forms. Different Member States have tackled many different aspects of the problems, in a range of ways, but no one Member State has all the answers. And since improving the situation requires so-called 'soft' actions besides legislation, it is an area ideally suited to exchanging good practices and experiences between Member States.

A key problem is access to finance. All entrepreneurs find it difficult to find the investors they need to secure their business, and specific measures are needed to make it easier for women to obtain the funding required for business ventures. And whilst legislative action is appropriate in some areas, in others the main need is to enable women to gain better information. One of the main initiatives the Commission is undertaking is to support networking amongst women entrepreneurs, amongst potential women entrepreneurs, and amongst government agencies and other support organisations which can play a role in encouraging women entrepreneurs.

A study was undertaken by the Commission in 2008 on women innovators and entrepreneurship.

The aim of the study was to perform a literature review for informing new policies and actions in the promotion of women's innovators/inventors' entrepreneurship. In addition, the study provided policy recommendations with a view to promote entrepreneurship of women innovators/inventors as a way to reach the goals of the Lisbon Agenda.

The study shows that women's obstacles to innovative entrepreneurship are of 3 types:

a) Contextual obstacles: educational choices, traditional views and stereotypes about women, science and innovation.

b) Economic obstacles: innovation sector requiring substantial investment and women being seen less credible financially than men

c) Soft obstacles: lack of access to technical scientific and general business networks, lack of business training, role models and entrepreneurship skills.

Full text of the study

Built on the Small Business Act

The Ambassadors’ network is just one of the many initiatives foreseen in the Commission’s 2008 Small Business Act designed to boost the growth of SMEs across Europe. Other measures on the SBA agenda include a mentoring scheme, to be launched in 2010, and steps to promote entrepreneurship among women graduates. The Act urges Member States to offer mentoring and support to female entrepreneurs and to exchange good practice. It also makes proposals for legislation: for example, the General Block Exemption Regulation on State Aid (GBER) permits state aid of up to €1 million for new, women-led companies.

Advice and support

The Commission has already opened a Women’s Entrepreneurship Portal, with links to contacts, events and networking opportunities within and between Member States. While the European Network to Promote Women’s Entrepreneurship (WES) brings together government representatives from 30 European countries to provide advice, support and information for female entrepreneurs, helping them to raise their profile and expand their businesses. It publishes an annual report of activity by national governments.