Dr Samantha Burvill (Associate Professor), Beth Cummings (Senior Lecturer) and Dr Robert Bowen (Lecturer) were finalised in the International Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) Conference 2022 for best paper in the “Networks, Innovation and Policy” track. 

Dr Samantha Burvill (Associate Professor), Beth Cummings (Senior Lecturer) and Dr Robert Bowen (Lecturer) were finalised in the International Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) Conference 2022 for best paper in the “Networks, Innovation and Policy” track and were successful in winning the “Alistair Anderson Entrepreneurship and Regional Development Publication Prize for an Early Career Researcher”. Both of these were for their paper entitled “From Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EE) to Purposeful Ecosystems (PE) in Wales in a Post Covid Era”. This paper will be submitted for publication in the coming weeks.

The paper critiques the literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems and presents the results of primary research undertaken of community interest company 4theRegion. From this the paper highlights the movement from a high growth focused ecosystem model towards a purposeful ecosystem model, balancing purpose and profit. This is particularly relevant given the recent covid-19 pandemic and the focus in Wales on the Well Being of Future Generations Act (Wales, 2015).

The researchers also won the Regions e-zine 2022 paper of the year award for their paper entitled “A well-being network approach to covid-19 recovery: the approach of 4theRegion” and won best paper in the ISBE 2021 conference for the “Networks, Innovation and Policy” track.

As part of the wider research project interviews were undertaken with Lund University Sweden (CIRCLE Group) as well as members of the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Tech. Swansea University School of Management recently hosted a visit by David Bridges VC of EI2 Georgia Tech. The research project has now evolved to the point whereby a more in depth case study has been undertaken of the South West Wales ecosystem as well as the Georgia/Atlanta ecosystem. The ultimate aim of this research is for it to be impactful informing practice and policy.

Share Story