Research: Women's Enterprise Policy Group

Research summary

• Set up in August 2020

The Women’s Enterprise Policy Group (WEPG) is a partnership that shapes inclusive enterprise policy. It was established with the initial task of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit.

Co-led by Prof Julia Rouse, WEPG shares research and practice evidence about responsible policy that enables women to succeed in business enterprise.

And it campaigns for these outputs to shape UK, devolved government and regional policies. 

Aims and members

The COVID-19 pandemic has created numerous challenges for women’s enterprise. We are currently focussing on issuing joint comments on COVID-19 enterprise policies and creating policy proposals.

WEPG is led by a steering group with members from a range of academic institutions and support practitioners from women’s business.

Gender and enterprise network

WEPG is strongly associated with the Gender and Enterprise Network (GEN), a special interest group in the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. GEN is taking a leading role in an international research community for women’s enterprise.

Founded by Prof Julia Rouse and currently co-chaired by Dr Sally Jones, the network runs a regular programme of public seminars and academics events.

It recently helped establish MENAGEN, a research community on women’s enterprise in the Middle East and North Africa.

Reviews of evidence

In 2020, Prof Julia Rouse co-edited a series of State of the Art Reviews on women’s enterprise - authoring two alongside contributions from Dr Sally Jones:

• Is Time Up for The Hero Male Entrepreneur? A Review of Enterprise Discourse and its Effects

• How Does Gender Shape Entrepreneurial Resources and Practice?

• What Do We Know About Ethnic and Migrant Women Entrepreneurs? A Review of Evidence

• Is Expanding Women’s Self-employment A Good Thing?

• A Review of Assumptions Underlying Women’s Enterprise Policy Initiatives