Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship secures £0.5M of European funding to stimulate small firm growth in the Liverpool City-Region (LCR)
Dr Benito Giordano (PI) and Professor Robert Blackburn (Co-I) (both SIBE group), supported by Richard Holloway and Robert Hannah, have been awarded £546,214 of European funding (ERDF). Within the Brett Centre, this funding will be used to deliver two additional Growth Catalyst cohorts between January 2022 and June 2023. The eight-month programme, based on ULMS research on small firms, supports learning and behavioural change among entrepreneurs in the LCR.
The latest tranche of funding is significant because it coincides with the 10-year anniversary of European business support programmes in ULMS. Since 2010, approximately £3.3M of funding has been secured to support almost 400 local small firms in 14 cohorts from which the impact has been significant and far-reaching.
Between 2014 and 2019, firms whose leaders completed Growth Catalyst grew faster, invested more and created more jobs than other small firms in the LCR that did not participate in the programme. The independent European-funding evaluation of Growth Catalyst estimated that it contributed almost £5m in GVA to the LCR economy and almost 350 additional new full-time jobs. Given that LCR underperforms economically compared with the UK (and EU) average, the impact of Growth Catalyst is noteworthy.
Academically, since 2010, European business support programmes have resulted in two REF Impact Cases (2014 and 2021), several high-ranking journal publications, contributed to ULMS Small Business Charter accreditation and have provided numerous student consultancy projects on UG and PG modules. Within the LCR, our ULMS small business alumni network is very active helping to stimulate local economic development, in a number of ways.
We are grateful for the continuing support of a number of other ULMS colleagues that contribute to the successful delivery of the programme.
If you would like to know more about Growth Catalyst then please drop Benito a line.