Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs are vital to the success of the Irish economy. The 2014 National Policy Statement on Entrepreneurship defined entrepreneurship as an individual’s creative capacity to identify an opportunity and pursue it in order to produce new value or economic success. The Policy Statement went on to say that entrepreneurship is a key element in the health and wellbeing of any thriving economy. The OECD agree, stating that SMEs and entrepreneurship are central to Ireland’s challenge of generating a broad-based growth and prosperity. The continued growth of our economy is highly dependent on entrepreneurs and the SMEs that they create, develop and grow.

The Report of the SME Taskforce: National SME and Entrepreneurship Growth Plan which was published in January 2021 further to a commitment in the Programme for Government – Our Shared Future, sets out an ambitious long-term strategic blueprint for entrepreneurs and SMEs beyond COVID-19. It has been developed by an SME Growth Taskforce of entrepreneurs, business leaders and other individuals uniquely positioned to contribute to a long-term vision for the SME sector.

The Taskforce’s Growth Plan sets out a wide range of recommendations with long-term strategic relevance for SME and entrepreneurs, including measures to assist companies to start up, scale up, enhance their digital capabilities, and increase export activity. These recommendations were reviewed and are being taken forward, as appropriate, by the SME and Entrepreneurship Implementation Group.

There has been significant progress on implementation, particularly given the challenging economic environment over the last few years. The Taskforce brought a progress report to government in December 2022: SME and Entrepreneurship Taskforce 2022: Priority Actions Progress Report

The Taskforce continued its work throughout 2023 and submitted a progress report to government outlining its work during the year: SME and Entrepreneurship Taskforce 2023: Priority Actions Progress Report

Mapping of support environment for entrepreneurs

The Department has compiled a mapping of supports for entrepreneurs around the country including funding opportunities, co-working, networking opportunities, accelerators, and supports for female entrepreneurs.

Supporting SMEs Online Tool

An online guide to increase awareness of the range of government supports for start-ups and small businesses. Answer the questions on supportingSMEs to find out which of the state supports might be a good fit for your business.

Promoting female entrepreneurship is increasingly viewed as a key source of job creation and innovation and a necessary step for addressing income inequality and social exclusion.

According to the GEM report 2019, the rate of early stage entrepreneurship in Ireland grew significantly in 2019. This was driven by an increase in the rate at which both men and women were early stage entrepreneurs. The rate for men, however increased more significantly than it did for women. The rate at which women aspire to start a business (15% | ), while still less than that for men (23% | ), when expressed as a ratio (1.6:1) bodes well for the future.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has a broad and comprehensive range of initiatives to encourage, support and develop women in leadership in business and female entrepreneurship. These include, for example, Women in Business Networks run by the Local Enterprise Offices, the Competitiveness Start-Up Fund and the Fuelling Ambition Programme, both run by Enterprise Ireland, the Female High Fliers Programme at the DCU Ryan Academy, the Going for Growth programme, the Acorns programme, which has a particular focus on female-led start-ups in rural areas.

The LEOs host National Women’s Enterprise Day annually to highlight success stories and encourage more women to access enterprise supports and to ‘open doors to new markets’ for their businesses. All 31 LEOs are behind the initiative and they enlist the help of established entrepreneurs to act as Regional Ambassadors, to share their success stories at the events.

What is the cause of the gap in female entrepreneurship?

We know the reasons why women are currently significantly under-represented in entrepreneurship are multi-faceted, complex and inter-linked. They include factors such as an under-representation of females in senior management positions in industry, a greater fear of failure and aversion to risk, male oriented design of eco-system supports and a lack of visible role models.

What have we done?

Addressing the under representation of female-led businesses that start a business and achieve considerable scale, requires a tailored, focussed approach in terms of support, personal development and networking opportunities.

Enterprise Ireland's Female Entrepreneurship Unit was established to support ambitious women grow scalable businesses and to address the key challenges impacting on the growth of female led business opportunities.

Enterprise Ireland's website has a dedicated Female Entrepreneurship page where you can learn more about their supports for female entrepreneurs.

In January 2020, the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation launched Enterprise Ireland’s new ‘Women in Business Action Plan’ which set out 24 actions to be progressed to support the scaling of female led businesses, increase start-up rate among females, support recruitment of part-time senior managers by business and to highlight role models and good practice.

Progress

Since the introduction in 2013 of measures targeting women, the number of women who are setting up their own businesses has grown year-on-year.

In 2012, just 8 out of 97 participating high potential start-ups (HPSU) were female-led (8% | ) which has increased to 37% | in 2022, when 34 of the 91 participating in the programme were female led.

EI statistics

Local Enterprise Office activity in female networking and mentoring

Progress has been made: For example, in 2015, 57% | of participants attending core training programmes in Local Enterprise Offices were female. This increased to 60% | in 2020.

Useful resources

Supporting SMEs is a cross-governmental guide to help small businesses know which of the over 170 government supports could possibly fit their business.

By answering the questions in the online tool, a small business will:

• identify which of the 170+ government business supports from 27 government departments, agencies and initiatives are applicable to them
• get information on the range of government supports for accessing credit
• find their nearest Local Enterprise Office where they can discuss the outcomes of the guide further
• download their customised results for further use

While this online tool is focussed on state-funded supports the department has also compiled a broader index of supports which includes privately funded programmes and facilities in the mapping of support for entrepreneurs. This index contains over 700 entries and includes a section specifically focussed on supports for women entrepreneurs.

The National Association of Community Enterprise Centres (NACEC) primary role is to support and develop the interests of 117 community enterprise centres on a national basis. Many centres were developed in areas of low employment and population.

WEgate is a gateway for women's entrepreneurship in Europe supported by the European Commission.

2016 OECD Rapid Policy Assessment on Supporting Women Entrepreneurs in Ireland (PDF)

Kauffman Foundation Female Entrepreneurship Information

Selection of supports for female entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly popular and valid career choice in today’s world. The 2019 GEM Report on Entrepreneurship in Ireland found that almost one in five of the adult population aspire to be entrepreneurs compared with 9.8% in 2006. Part of the reason for this is the continued digitalisation of the SME sector, which has helped level the playing field for many entrepreneurs.

As a result, having capital and premises is no longer necessarily a prerequisite for setting up a business. Instead, drive, knowledge, ambition and great ideas are key.

It is critical that the potential of all young people is encouraged at an early stage. There are a range of programmes supported by Government Departments, agencies and business that develop essential entrepreneurial aptitudes among our young people, such as the Young Social Innovators (YSI) awards, which has a target to work with half of the secondary schools in the country on innovation-thinking, and Junior Achievement Ireland (JAI), bringing entrepreneurship education to over 60,000 students annually.

Evidence

The European Commission’s 2015 'Entrepreneurship Education: A road to success' report examined 91 studies from 23 countries. The prevailing impression that emerged from the evidence collected is that entrepreneurship education works.

The report found that students participating in entrepreneurship education are more likely to start their own business and their companies tend to be more innovative and more successful than those led by persons without entrepreneurship education backgrounds.

It also found that entrepreneurship education alumni are at lower risk of being unemployed, and are more often in steady employment. Compared to their peers, they have better jobs and earn more money.

• European Commission's Entrepreneurship Education
• 'Entrepreneurship Education: A road to success' report and other EU Projects and Studies

Being entrepreneurial is not just about starting and running a business. It’s about the willingness and ability of individuals to turn ideas into action.

It’s about:

• Creativity
• Innovation
• Risk-taking
• Ability to plan and manage projects
• Achieve objectives
• Awareness of context and
• Ability to identify, create & seize opportunities.

These are skills that can also be put to use by employees to provide innovative inputs within organisations (so called intrapreneurs). The skills can also be used to address wider societal issues, not just commercial applications (e.g. social entrepreneurship) and indeed in personal and family life.

Irish Policy

Ireland's National Skills Strategy 2025 was published by the Department of Education and Skills in January 2016. It includes a commitment to develop an Entrepreneurship Education Policy Statement which will inform the development of entrepreneurship guidelines for schools.

The Department of Education and Skills already supports enterprise in schools through the development of a basic understanding of scientific principles and methods and of business.

It also encourages active and collaborative learning, the development of ICT skills in the revised primary curriculum and good arts education, all of which foster creativity, innovation, risk-taking and other key elements in entrepreneurial thinking and action.

Skills underpinning entrepreneurship are also central to the new Framework for Junior Cycle and there are many examples of good work being undertaken in many schools at transition year in mini-company formation and other projects designed to foster entrepreneurship.

All of the above skills, allied with the attainment of competence in a second modern language, form an important basis for lifelong learning and for creating a culture of enterprise.

Educators are free to complement the above with specific entrepreneurship education resources such as those shown below.

At Primary level, entrepreneurship education can be incorporated directly as part of discretionary curriculum time or indirectly in areas such as Drama, Art, Oral Language, Creative Writing, Project Group/ Activity or Art.

At Secondary Level, it can be incorporated into Business Subjects or Transition Year Projects.

Irish Initiatives for Schools

The Local Enterprise Office run Student Entrepreneurship Initiatives at all three levels.

Other initiatives include:

Primary Level

• Junior Entrepreneur Programme
• Junior Achievement Ireland
• BizWorld Ireland

Second level

• The Student Enterprise Programme : Each year over 22,000 secondary level students all over Ireland get to find out what it’s like to run their own business by taking part in the Local Enterprise Offices Student Enterprise Programme.
• Foróige Network for teaching entrepreneurship
• The Young Entrepreneur Programme
• Transition Year students Get up and Go mini company project
• BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (Primary schools can also participate in showcasing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics projects for evaluation).
• BT Young Scientist Business Bootcamp (In association with Nova UCD). An extension of the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition. A four-day innovation and skills camp welcomes a number of second-level students from across Ireland who demonstrate an ability to understand how and why a simple idea can be developed into a commercially-viable enterprise.

The students are selected from over 1,200 secondary school students who competed in this year’s BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition.

Free Online Entrepreneurship Education Resources

• The Student Enterprise Programme provides teacher resources to support the 22,000 Plus secondary school students taking part in the Programme. The resources include a teachers’ manual, student workbook, sample student business reports and videos including helpful tips from successful entrepreneurs. Free teacher resource packs are available from Local Enterprise Offices and through the www.studententerprise.ie website.
• The Entrepreneurial Schools Virtual Guide to Entrepreneurial Learning is one of the largest entrepreneurship education initiatives in Europe, co-funded by the European Commission through the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP).

It aims at supporting teachers professional development in applying entrepreneurial learning in several subjects and learning environments (primary, secondary, upper secondary and vocational schools).

The Virtual Guide is a practical and useful tool for teachers in primary, secondary and vocational schools that want to mainstream entrepreneurial education in teaching methods and learning processes they set up in classroom every day.

The guide contains more than 100 tools and methods to support entrepreneurial teaching and learning, good practices and framework documents from 85 different schools in 10 countries.

It also includes self-assessment and review tools for teachers and schools who want to assess how entrepreneurial their learning process are and to review their progress on a regular basis.

The tools range from running an Autumn Market to Students identifying and invite an entrepreneur to be interviewed by them to running a Student Company and much more.

Other Information

Entrepreneurship360 is a collaborative initiative of the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It aims to nurture entrepreneurship as a key competence in schools and technical and vocational institutions.

Entrepreneurship360 offers a freely available self-assessment instrument that will support institutions and individual teachers in advancing their strategies and practices to promote entrepreneurship, as well as to develop a platform for exchange amongst peers.

It also gives the opportunity to individuals and schools and VET providers to learn from each other’s practices, and share their own.

Support for Entrepreneurs

Free online entrepreneurship resources

A selection of free online entrepreneurship resources.

Stanford Entrepreneurship Corner

Stanford Entrepreneurship Corner is a free online archive of entrepreneurship resources from Stanford University. It offers thousands of entrepreneurship related videos (both full talks and highlight clips), podcasts and articles.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content.

It offers a free and open publication of material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum. ranging from the introductory to the most advanced graduate level.

Each OCW course includes a syllabus, some instructional material (such as lecture notes or a reading list), and some learning activities (such as assignments or exams). Many courses also have complete video lectures, free online textbooks, and faculty teaching insights.

Those interested in a general introduction to entrepreneurship as taught at MIT should visit 15.390 New Enterprises.

The Kauffman Founders School

The Kauffman Founders School channel also has a wide variety of informative videos for entrepreneurs to learn free of charge.

Subject experts present lectures that are embedded in short modules designed to provide a rich learning experience.

Topics include:

• Entrepreneurial Selling
• The Art of Start Up Finance
• Powerful Presentations
• The lean approach
• Scaling your Company
• Intellectual property and more.

Within the video series modules there are also:

• Suggested readings
• Questions for founders and their teams
• Tools and resources for implementation

You Tube channel: youtube.com/FoundersSchool

National Enterprise Hub

The National Enterprise Hub is an all-of-government service, staffed by expertly trained advisors and is focused on helping businesses access a range of government supports.

The hub brings together information and resources on over 180 government supports from 19 different departments and state agencies which can be accessed through the online hub neh.gov.ie or by speaking to a member of the team of advisors by phone or via live chat.

This free service will make it easier for entrepreneurs to access and avail of supports such as grants, funding, loans and expert advice across a range of sectors, including retail, tourism, and hospitality, food and beverages. It also aims to engage with small businesses who have yet to avail of government support.

Other useful links

• TechIreland.org is a business development tool helping connect Irish startups with international investors, media and global customers
• Community Enterprise Association Ireland (CEAI): The Community Enterprise Association Ireland – CEAI – represents a network of 270+ Enterprise Ireland funded community enterprise centres, co-working locations and flexible working spaces across the Republic of Ireland
• Revenue’s guides for starting and running a business: Information about the tax and customs implications of starting and running a business, the initiatives available for start-up businesses and paying your tax
• Business Regulation portal
• EU SME tools and databases including a self-assessment early warning tool and a guide on crowdfunding
• DCU National Centre for Family Business