Blog

One of the main strands of IGL’s work is to support our partners in experimenting with interventions that are aimed at increasing the productivity of small and medium-sized enterprises.

In this blog, we explore how public sector organisations can become more inclusive employers.

Social entrepreneurship is characterised by a deep commitment to a social cause and the desire to develop new business models with economic, social, and ecological impacts. But can people be trained to become better at social entrepreneurship? HEC Paris Professors Thomas Åstebro and Florian Hoos found that social entrepreneurship training works, but only if carefully designed.

In a recent post, we highlighted the findings from the randomised trial of the Business Boost project, carried out by Cavendish Enterprise in collaboration with the Enterprise Research Centre. Since this was the first randomised trial to be completed under the UK Government’s Business Basics Programme, it was a learning process for the implementers, the evaluators, and for us in the Innovation Growth Lab (IGL). Together with a colleague from the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, we recently chatted with Doug Scott, Chair of Cavendish Enterprise and the instigator of the Business Boost trial, to find out what he had learned during the process.

We invite guest bloggers Stephen Roper and Halima Jibril from the ERC to discuss their Business Basics trial on what 'work's for improving small business productivity.