Ethnic Minority Women and Social Enterprises

NWBS has also recently completed successfully a research project on ethnic minority women and social enterprises. The “Empowering Women from Ethnic Minorities in Social Enterprises” (EMWOSE) project was funded by the European Union — Erasmus Research Grant.

NWBS has worked with six European institutions from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Greece and Turkey. Along with the six countries in Europe, Glyndwr University has completed the EMWOSE research project. The findings from storytelling libraries and survey questionnaires will be invaluable in helping to create learning resources for coaching women from ethnic minorities to be successful in managing their SE companies as pedagogic lessons to be learned.

The total project budget was €270,303. It initially ran from December 2018 to December 2020. However, due to the unexpected pandemic, the project and relevant publications were completed recently in 2022/23.

• The research projects significantly influence local and regional businesses, particularly for small business start-ups competing with big businesses and for women developing social enterprises in the local economies. While economic development has always been occupied with multinationals and big businesses, smaller businesses and women in social enterprises are often neglected in the processes of economic development.
• It shows the pivotal role fulfilled by NWBS of Wrexham University in supporting local and regional economic development, achieving regional economic competitiveness, particularly helping small businesses and ethnic minority women in social enterprises.
• It shows that NWBS of Wrexham University’s research projects are realistic in everyday life, not merely in the privileged seclusion of academia’s ivory tower, which merely deals with theories and models divorced from the practicalities of the real world.
• The outcomes of his research are pedagogic modules to support small businesses in F&D and women in social enterprises in enhancing their skills so they will be able to compete against increasingly fierce competition and survive in the long term.