New grant to research the impact of incubators and accelerators on UK businesses

An OU researcher is part of a team which has received funding for a research project on the impact of incubators and accelerators on UK businesses and its overall competitiveness.

Dr Henry Lahr, Senior Lecturer in Finance in the OU’s Faculty of Business and Law, together with collaborators at Nesta, the London School of Economics (LSE) and Beauhurst, has been funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to do this 18-month research project.

According to Dr Lahr, incubators and accelerators aim to support young firms through the early and often fragile stages of growth. Previous research by BEIS identified where the majority of these types of organisations are located.

The project team plans to build on these findings and aims to investigate the activities of incubators and accelerators further, their impact on the businesses supported, and their relations with and impact on the wider local innovation ecosystem.

“This is important research, as it will inform individual businesses and future policy making at the national and local level and may contribute to the government’s industrial strategy,” said Dr Lahr. “By doing this, it will also support the government’s objective to make the UK one of the most competitive places in the world to start or grow a business.”

Read the Nesta blog about the project

Read more about research at The Open University Business School