Working with New Migrant Businesses Workshop

Yesterday, MEECOE ran a successful workshop in Birmingham which focussed on working with New Migrant businesses. Starting point was filling a knowledge gap regarding entrepreneurs from New Migrant communities. Who sets up new businesses and why? In what sectors of the economy are they concentrated? What factors promote or retard business formation? How many new jobs are being created and what are these jobs like?

Attendees represented many different stakeholders from business owners, policy makers to business support networks. As such the lively debate brought up some key issues for the research to focus on.

To gain further insight some one-to-one interviews will follow. These will allow the research to be steered toward and focussed on the crucial issues which were brought up by stakeholder themselves.

CREME Director to Consult on ESRC Project

CREME Director Prof Monder Ram will be involved as a co-investigator in a prestigious new ESRC project which was awarded to two research centres at Newcastle University: the Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE) and the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS).

The 28-month long project will be overseen by Dr Simon Down (KITE), Dr Paul Richter (KITE) and Dr Jane Pollard (CURDS) and will compare firms in the North East and Cambridgeshire in the bio-processing, film and media and security sectors and intensively track a small number of firms to get a close-up picture.

Dr Simon Down, the principal investigator, explains:" Whilst we know that all entrepreneurs complain about the excessive burden of red tape, very little is known about how they really deal with it in everyday life. To ensure that government gets the extent and forms of regulation right, without unduly harming the development of small businesses, better knowledge is required. It’s all well and good simply saying reduce the regulatory burden, but as we have seen in recent years, too light a regulatory touch isn’t necessarily in everyone's best interest".

A Week in the Life of Prof Monder Ram

Lund is a lively University town in the south of Sweden. In contrast, Eslov is a quiet vilage situated a few miles from the town. It is home to the Herbert Felix Institute (HFI), which is named after a prominent 'immigrant entrepreneur' who did much to regenerate the area. Lund University and the HFI jointly support my visiting Professorship at Lund. It is an exciting assignment. My role is to stimulate research on ethnic minority entrepreneurship at Lund, and at the same time, engage in more practical and policy oriented activities with the HFI in order to raise awareness of the issue. This blend of research and practice fits well with the work of CREME at De Montfort University.

My recent visit was typically hectic and varied. My first task was to catch up with my Phd student at Lund, Craig Mitchell. Craig is a year into his studies. He is trying to get to grips with literature on immigration, entrepreneurship, and the Swedish language (which is tough call for this affable Scotsman). But he has done well to navigate a path through the extensive and somewhat eclectic debates on the subject. Quite sensibly, he will be looking at the contribution that entrepreneurship studies can make to resesearch on ethnic minority studies. Wednesday (13 May) was an important day for him. His research proposal was scrutinised in public (that's the Swedish way), and he was interrogated on its contents by three academics from Lund and Malmo University. He acquitted himself extremely well, and moves on to the next stage of his academic journey.

My stint at the HFI was rather interesting. With barely any notice, I was asked to give a presentation to a group of visiting schoolchildren from Sweden and Germany. It is a real challenge to make the subject of immigrant entrepreneurship relevant to 16 year olds from different countries. Where do you start? Well, I suppose one might want to reflect upon the generic importance of entrepreneurship, immigration and human rights. And then hope for the best. I emerged (relatively) unscathed; although I was intrigued by the insouciance of one youngster who resolutely kept his ipod earphones firmly in place throughout my talk.

On the research front, much of my time was taken up with assisting to put together a major bid to undertake a large-scale study of immigrant entrepeneurship in Sweden. It involves a collaboration between Lund and Malmo University, as well as CREME. CREME's role in this multi-dsciplinary research project will be to provide international policy comparisions, which will be used to 'benchmark' the policy and research on immigrant entrepreneurship in Sweden.

Despite the tranquility of Eslov and the genial, pleasant setting of Lund, it is difficult to escape the hurly-burly of CREME's activities. We have been asked to be a partner in a bid to the National Lottery on new migrant social enterprises in the east Midlands. It has be to submitted in the next few days and I am expecting a frantic phone call in less than an hour. Never mind, I will be back in Lund in September!

-Prof Monder Ram -