The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship and The Entrepreneurs Network invite you to a discussion on how the UK can better support women turning academic research into successful businesses.

The event will explore the findings of Ideas to Impact, a report from The Entrepreneurs Network’s Female Founders Forum in partnership with Barclays. The report examines the experiences of female academic entrepreneurs in the UK’s university spinout system and highlights the barriers that continue to limit participation — from structural constraints within academic careers to biases in investment and networks.

Despite the UK’s world-class research base, women remain underrepresented among spinout founders. Without reform, parity in founding university spinouts may still be decades away.

The conversation will be led by Victoria Collins MP, Officer of the APPG. Victoria is the Liberal Democrat’s Science, Innovation and Technology Spokesperson and MP for Harpenden & Berkhamsted. She was also an entrepreneur who ran an award-winning business.

We will discuss the report’s findings and what policymakers can do to strengthen the pipeline from research to high-growth companies.

The conversation will cover:

• Why female academics remain underrepresented in university spinouts.

• Structural barriers in academia, investment and commercialisation.

• Policy ideas that could accelerate the translation of research into businesses.

• How the UK can ensure that the benefits of its research base are fully realised.

An anonymised writeup will be produced off the back of the meeting and circulated within the APPG, wider policymakers and our network of thousands.

This will be an opportunity for a small group of founders, investors, academics and policymakers to engage directly with the ideas and discuss practical steps to strengthen Britain’s innovation ecosystem.