Source · Select Committees · Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Acknowledged
Innovate UK's funding structures and processes exhibit systemic bias against female entrepreneurs.
Conclusion
Innovate UK provides an essential funding stream for mainly male entrepreneurs. Women who seek to access funding from it report their projects being undervalued and subject to biased investment decisions from majority male assessment panels. Match funding requirements exclude women who already struggle to access investment while application processes are onerous. Innovate UK’s decision to allocate only half of the available funding from the Women in Innovation programme was extraordinary and suggestive of a much deeper problem in which women are treated as a second order priority by the UK’s research establishment. (Conclusion, Paragraph 47)
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledges the conclusion by highlighting Innovate UK's existing Women in Innovation Programme, its past successes, and claiming equal success rates for applications. It also notes new actions being taken, such as establishing a Community Forum, launching an assessor recruitment campaign, and exploring ways to help investors identify women-led businesses.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
We welcome the Committee’s spotlight on Innovate UK as a leader on this agenda and are pleased to share its recently announced programmes and commitments. Innovate UK is committed to driving inclusive innovation and realising the full potential of untapped talent in the UK. Women innovators represent a huge part of this currently untapped talent. Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation Programme has been running for 9 years. Since its inception in 2016, the programme has invested over £11 million in more than 200 women innovators and built a vibrant network of 11,000 women business leaders. Over this time, Innovate UK has seen an increase in the proportion of successful women-led applications across all competitions from 1 in 7 to 1 in 3. Success rates for applications to Innovate UK are equivalent for men and women. Over the last year, Innovate UK has engaged closely with the community to listen, learn and work together to identify opportunities to accelerate growth and scale for women-led businesses. In response, Innovate UK published a Pledge for Progress for Women in Innovation5 in April 2025, which set out 10 commitments, and a report on progress in October 2025. The 10 commitments have been designed to create more opportunities, foster inclusivity, and deliver systemic change for Innovate UK and across the wider innovation ecosystem. They include refining the Women in Innovation Awards and setting bold goals and measures for representation and inclusion in the future Innovate UK strategy. So far, new actions include establishing a Women in Innovation Community Forum, launching an assessor recruitment campaign and opening the competition for Women in Innovation Awards 2025/26 (as highlighted in the November 2025 Budget). Innovate UK is working closely with partners in the ecosystem to align efforts, including the British Business Bank, the Invest in Women Taskforce and the investment community. Innovate UK is a signatory of the Investing in Women Code and around 45% of Innovate UK’s investor partners are signatories of the code. Innovate UK is exploring opportunities to do more to help investors identify high potential women-led businesses and de-risk investments into these businesses (by providing due diligence on the innovation and offering aligned grant funding) and provide an incentive for change.