National Entrepreneurship Observatory

National Entrepreneurship Observatory

The National Entrepreneurship Observatory (NEO) has been established as a joint project with the overarching objective is to establish a world-class programme of research in the field of entrepreneurship and enterprise development that will help inform policy and provide a base for the development of other research opportunities.

A co-operative arrangement between the Welsh Enterprise Institute at the University of Glamorgan and the Centre for Advanced Studies (CASS) at Cardiff University, NEO brings together the two main contributors to the field of entrepreneurship and enterprise development in Wales - Professor Steve Hill and Professor Dylan Jones-Evans - who act as co-directors of the project.

The aim is to conduct the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for Wales project - a £1.7 million project, funded by the Welsh Development Agency (WDA), Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO which handles the European Social Fund for Objective 1 & 3) and University overhead contribution. GEM is the world’s largest study of entrepreneurship, involving over thirty countries each year. It has been conducted in Wales since 2000, with information based on an adult population survey of 2,000 people in Wales. The principal output is a comparable index of entrepreneurial activity that allows performance in Wales to be benchmarked against other similar regions and nations.

This expansion of the GEM study in Wales led to the appointment of three researchers, who participate in detailed research programmes aimed at producing world-class academic outputs for the project, as well as an administrator who will act as a central co-ordinator for the project.

The survey has also been expanded to 8,000 adults, which provides a far more detailed analysis of the key conditions that underlie the GEM measure of entrepreneurial activity, including culture, finance, government and innovation policy and programmes, education/training. The funding also led to improved analysis of different geographical levels in Wales, enabling a range of detailed comparative data analysis to take place such as a comparison of rural vs. urban enterprise.

NEO also has full membership of the GEM UK research team and direct access to the annual 32,000 participant dataset of entrepreneurial activity by region, enabling the possibility for more detailed comparative research studies to take place.

“The Directors at NEO regularly attend speaking engagements and events regarding the work of NEO, GEM and entrepreneurship in both Wales and the UK. If you have an event in the future and would like to arrange a speaker, please email us at .”