UK female academic entrepreneurs may not reach parity with their male counterparts when it comes to commercialising their research through spinout firms until 2060, a new report has warned.
The Entrepreneurs Network said while all founders can face challenges, women starting university spinouts, start-ups based on commercialised academic research, often face “distinct, disproportionate and compounding barriers rooted in academic culture, risk aversion, and a lack of tailored support.
In 2023, less than 8% of spinouts had all-women founding teams, with over 75% being all-male, which the study said shows how the system is “failing to tap into the potential of the UK’s full talent pool”.
The government commissioned an independent review of university spinout companies in 2023, but the Entrepreneurs Network said “while there has been modest improvement in recent years…progress remains incremental and significantly below equal gender representation”.
It warned that current research fails to examine how gender intersects with spinout sectors and university support mechanisms, potentially missing key barriers unique to female spinout founders.
The report made several policy recommendations to improve support for female entrepreneurs launching spinouts, including:
- requiring universities to publish detail data to show were female-led teams are falling behind.
- support for founders in social sciences, humanities, and the arts to capitalise on non-patentable IP and social impact, as well as help focused on financial modelling and productisation.
- accelerators replacing “exclusionary evening networking” with hybrid or daytime sessions to ensure caregivers can access events.
- normalise entrepreneurship in higher education by commercialisation training moving to an “opt-out” model across all degrees.
- improved mentorship and investor engagement: Support should shift from short-term confidence building to long-term structures focused on operational scaling.
Jennifer Seig, adviser to The Entrepreneurs Network, said:
“The barriers many female academic entrepreneurs face are not a lack of confidence or ambition, but the practical realities of how the system operates.
“Time is constrained, particularly for those carrying the majority of caring or household responsibilities, and stepping away from a traditional academic or professional path continues to carry disproportionate risk.
“These pressures quietly narrow what feels possible, shaping not just who participates in entrepreneurship, but which ideas are pursued at all. The result is that too much talent is left behind. This is not only a loss for individual founders, it is a loss for the innovation economy we are trying to build.”
Juliet Gouldman, director at Barclays Business Banking, said:
“By helping to dismantle the barriers that female founders face in the UK, we move closer to unlocking a potential £250bn injection into the economy.
“This research underscores the critical role peer networks, accelerators and supportive communities play, as well as the importance of accommodating caregiving responsibilities. Yet systemic challenges persist, challenges that require partnership across education, financial services and government to drive meaningful change.”
The study follows a separate report by the Women’s and Equalities Committee last year which also called for a specific programme of dedicated entrepreneurial support for women in postgraduate and postdoctoral studies.