Leeds hosts closing event for “Migrant Women in Business – A Focus on West Yorkshire”
On 8 July 2024, Leeds University Business School hosted the closing event for the research project - Migrant Women in Business – A Focus on West Yorkshire.
This project is led by Ewa Lelontko from Migration Yorkshire in collaboration with Dr Deema Refai, Management and Organisations Department, Leeds University Business School, alongside The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network (TERN) and Skylight Ventures.
Representatives from West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), the funder of this project, attended the event and gave excellent feedback. The audience included wide representation from across the Yorkshire region including startup managers and practice/policy representatives from Leeds, Kirklees, Calderdale, Wakefield and Bradford. There were also representatives from Ad:Venture for business support and The Prince’s Trust, alongside panellists from York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority (YNYCA), South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), and Hull and East Yorkshire Business.
The event included an excellent line-up of keynote speakers. Fatima Khan-Shah (West Yorkshire’s first ever Inclusivity Champion) stressed the importance of such projects and gatherings in supporting and meeting regional goals. Professor Monder Ram, OBE (Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME), Aston University), discussed the socio-economic value of migrant entrepreneurship and how that can be supported, while Dr Lorna Treanor (Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Nottingham University, and President of the Institute for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (ISBE)) drew on women entrepreneur contributions to the UK economy and the main challenges facing them.
Considering the project’s focus of harnessing the socio-economic potential of migrant women entrepreneurs through business startup support, the event had a strong practice focus. Guest speaker Dr Andy Mycock (Chief Policy Fellow of the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network (YPERN) emphasised the importance of this project in bridging the gap between policy, practice, and academia. Furthermore, Fred Kastner (Co-founder of TERN) and Brian Doe (Head of Business lending at Skylight Venture) introduced the audience to their enterprises and the success stories of refugee entrepreneurs who have established running businesses in the UK.
A panel with migrant women entrepreneurs who took part in this project was key to this event, where a number of graduates spoke about their journeys, their challenges, and how this project has supported them in developing business ideas or – for some – registering and starting their own businesses. The panel was led by Jane Walton (Director of Yorkshire Mentoring) who has supported migrant women throughout this project.
Dr Deema Refai said:
Engaged scholarship is one of the core aims that Ewa and I had throughout this project, and we are so pleased to see representatives from policy, practice and academia coming together on this closing event to share their thoughts and experiences, while proposing some valuable suggestions for the future of migrant and migrant women entrepreneurship in the region.
Ewa Lelontko said:
We’re very grateful to West Yorkshire Combined Authority for giving us an opportunity to run this pioneering project. We know that migrant communities struggle to access mainstream business support and the results of our pilot will help inform the design of future start-up provision in West Yorkshire, and beyond.
This project has set foundations for wider contributions, networks and collaborations within Yorkshire and the wider UK, and the project leaders are already in discussion of future avenues and funding.
Furthermore, the project leads are currently finalising a policy brief which will be published before the end of 2024 to communicate the project’s main findings and recommendations, bringing together the views of multiple stakeholders from policy, practice and academia. The report will be launched at an event advertised closer to the date.
View the research project page for Migrant Women in Business – A Focus on West Yorkshire
Migration Yorkshire is a local authority-led partnership that supports people and organisations to achieve the most positive outcomes of migration for everyone in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network is a non-profit that supports refugees to start their own business. Their mission is to enable refugees through the power of their own ideas.
Skylight Ventures is a community-led fund set-up specifically to meet the significant financing gaps for refugee entrepreneurs looking to develop their business ideas.
