|
 |
|
|
 WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS
|
|
Creating the confidence to try |
| |
| |
|
There is not enough entrepreneurial activity in Europe if our headline economic growth targets are to be met, and women are even less likely than men to set up in business. Studies have identified a number of reasons for this situation, and many initiatives have been launched to address these specific issues. At EU level, the focus has turned to building on these individual efforts, sharing experience and ideas to encourage more women to try out their business ideas. |
|
|
 ntrepreneurship is so often the spark that takes a research result or a process and turns it into a new product or service. It is about having an eye for the market and taking the risks to try and fill a gap there. Above all, entrepreneurs need commitment, both in personal terms – time and energy – and in monetary terms. Entrepreneurs do not need to have a strong scientific background. Even if they are making cutting-edge high-tech products, they need not understand the technology in great detail. Rather, their role is to harness the creativity of the technologists, disciplining their work to produce marketable products. And successful innovation is first and foremost about creating a smooth interface between these two worlds.
In setting out its key economic growth targets, notably the Lisbon strategy, the European Union has recognised that there is not enough entrepreneurial activity within our frontiers. Encouraging more entrepreneurs to try their ideas on the market place would both increase Europe’s economic growth and lead to more jobs being created. Figures from 2003 show that only 4% of Europeans have started a business within the past three years or were engaged in starting one, against 11% in the US. Just as significantly, too few of Europe’s new companies actually achieve important expansion, although almost one-third of small companies declared growth as their main ambition.
To counter these problems, the European Commission has recognised the need to improve the business environment, to make it simpler and more attractive for entrepreneurial activity. Realising such change requires not only administrative development but also cultural changes at local and regional, as well as national and EU levels. Last year, the Commission published a Green Paper on Entrepreneurship, and earlier this year or followed up with an Action Plan on Entrepreneurship (see ‘Entrepreneurship targets’). One of the key actions within that plan addresses specific target groups, of which women are the most significant. Despite their weight in the population, women entrepreneurs in EU Member States represented only 20 to 30% of all entrepreneurs on average by the end of the 1990s. |
|
March 2004
