Collaborate with GEM to assess city and regional readiness for entrepreneurship
What makes a city or region attractive to entrepreneurs? Which factors draw creative entrepreneurs to a city or region…indeed, to any entrepreneurial ecosystem? What gives them the confidence that they can build successful, value-adding and profitable companies in a nurturing context? How good are cities and regions at building these contexts and nurturing entrepreneurship?
Collaborate with Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) to find answers to these questions in cities and regions that are of importance to you! Our new Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Quality Composite Index (ESI) is a diagnostic tool that provides frameworks and data to analyse just about any subnational ecosystem.
The ESI is based on a solid theoretical model of entrepreneurial ecosystems developed in 2015 by Erik Stam, the distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Utrecht University. The ESI was transformed into information tools and data by GEM researchers in 2018. It has been carefully designed and has integrated state of the art thinking in entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Using the tool, stakeholders - local government officials, policymakers, business association leaders and researchers - can visualize the many indicators that make up the quality of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Even more interesting, they can benchmark with other cities and regions. The ESI tool is flexible; new indicators can be added based on specific interest areas. The ESI was successfully piloted in 2018 in Catalonia and Madrid, Spain as well as Hannover, Germany, under the supervision of the GEM Research Innovation Advisory Committee (consisting of 12 top researchers on entrepreneurship from different parts of the world). In 2019, a beta version of the ESI was rolled out to 11 additional ecosystems.
ESI can now be carried out by existing GEM National Teams as well as new groups or stakeholders that wish to investigate specific cities and/or regions at any time and for any subnational territory.
"The use of ESI allowed us to have a complete portrait of Montreal's entrepreneurial ecosystem. The information obtained enabled us to provide avenues of action to improve certain aspects of the support offered to entrepreneurs. It also showed which offered services are appreciated, useful, and should be retained! ESI provides a roadmap to maintaining a vibrant and dynamic ecosystem in the future." - Dr. Étienne St-Jean, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
"Reporting on the findings from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Quality Index in our region of Nova Scotia, Canada, generated a significant amount of interest from policymakers and ecosystem actors. Some of the notable findings, based on our data, have informed debate and helped leading ecosystem players to think about strategies for further ecosystem development." - Kevin McKague, PhD, Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, Shannon School of Business, Cape Breton University
“The GEM ESI methodology provided a valuable contribution to deepen our knowledge of Madrid's entrepreneurial ecosystem. It is a solid scientific approach and offers the possibility to analyse a number of variables aligned to different key pillars. This enabled us to identify how the main actors interact and the key issues to be addressed to foster ecosystem development. The ESI tool is a great input for diagnosis and policymaking.” - Isidro de Pablo López, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Interested or intrigued? Take a look at our video and set up a discussion with GEM Executive Director Aileen Ionescu-Somers ([email protected]) to launch your ESI project!
