Story three
Entrepreneurship policy often assumes that once a market, platform or support scheme exists, people will use it. The published evidence is less encouraging. Gender, geography, family expectations, finance, access to technology and institutional voids decide who can act on an opportunity in the first place.
Background: a group of would-be founders passing five barriers, from connectivity and digital skills to finance, confidence and market access. The image is illustrative and does not plot the data.
Access depends on several conditions that build on each other, including finance, skills, family circumstances, digital infrastructure, market knowledge and institutional support. The papers behind this story study these constraints in women’s entrepreneurship, new ventures in emerging markets, technology and export intensity, and productive entrepreneurship where institutions are weak.
News and reports from journalists, regulators and research bodies. None of it is my own work. I include it because it shows these questions in practice, and I check each item against the original source.
SME bank lending rose 9 percent to £68bn in 2025, yet rural, coastal, female-led and ethnic minority-led firms still face the greatest obstacles raising finance.
The overall recovery hides lasting gaps by gender, ethnicity and region. 51 percent of ethnic minority-led firms expect difficulty accessing finance, compared with 36 percent of White-led firms.
The sixth annual report on the Rose Review-derived Code, now with over 300 signatories including most major UK retail banks.
UK policy still relies on voluntary commitments from lenders to close the finance gap for women. Evidence on the barriers that actually stop women taking part therefore remains useful to policymakers.
A £30m anchor investment into a fund-of-funds targeting a £130m first close, channelling capital to women-led businesses and female fund managers.
Capital for women founders is being built on purpose. The open question is whether rural and regional founders can reach it.
The government SME plan sets out growth incubators including the West Midlands, a £400m Investor Pathways scheme for under-represented founders, and SME decarbonisation support.
The plan brings support for under-represented and regional founders into one strategy, so evidence on who actually uses such schemes matters directly for policy.
Full fibre now reaches 82 percent of UK premises, yet 39,000 premises still cannot access decent broadband by fixed or wireless means.
The remaining connectivity gap is small but persistent, and it comes on top of the skills barrier.
Women in low- and middle-income countries are 12 percent less likely than men to use mobile internet, with rural gender gaps two to three times wider than urban ones.
This puts a number on the combined rural and gender digital divide, which the fellowship on rural women's digital inclusion addresses directly.
Enduring disadvantage in former industrial areas including the Midlands, with rural young people blocked from education and skilled work by travel costs.
This is the regional background to my Midlands work on export decline, ethnic minority business growth and rural participation.
Peer-reviewed and accepted papers only. Papers still under review are described at the end but not listed, because they have not yet passed review.
New funded fieldwork with rural and under-represented founders builds on these papers. I will add the results once they are public.
Judge a programme by who actually takes part. A scheme, technology or market opportunity only matters if the founders it is meant for can reach it and use it.
Most of this work is at the proposal or early stage. Others have documented the finance and connectivity gaps well. We do not yet know which barrier matters most for a given group, and the funded projects are designed to test exactly that.
