APPG Evidence Session: Spinout Female Founders
/Founders and experts warn that institutional inertia, rigid equity structures and a lack of formal recognition for commercialisation are preventing female academics from scaling Britain’s next generation of deep-tech and social ventures.
The Entrepreneurs Network, acting as the Secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Entrepreneurship, recently held a quick-fire evidence session to investigate the specific barriers facing female academic founders.
Chaired by Victoria Collins MP, an Officer of the APPG and Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Science and Technology, the session brought together university innovation leads, investors, and founders to discuss why female researchers remain underrepresented in the UK’s spinout ecosystem.
While the session was held under the Chatham House Rule, we have summarised the core themes and policy ideas discussed below.
A system where goals and rewards are not aligned
A broad consensus emerged that the UK’s academic reward system is fundamentally misaligned with the goal of commercialisation. For most academics, the path to promotion is paved with publications and grants, not patents or company formation.
Participants noted that the Research Excellence Framework (REF) — the system used to assess the quality of research in higher education — does not sufficiently value the time spent on commercial pursuits. As one participant noted:
“Institutional structures ignore commercialisation roles when assessing performance. If it’s not what they are being paid for, it gets pushed to the background.”
This lack of formal recognition creates a ‘participation tax’ on academics who wish to innovate. There was a strong call to reform career pathways so that impact through business creation is viewed as a legitimate and rewarded academic pursuit, rather than a hobby or a distraction from teaching.
Time scarcity and the buyout problem
One of the most persistent barriers discussed was the lack of spare time academics have for commercialisation. Research consistently shows that female academics often carry a disproportionate share of caring responsibilities at home and administrative roles within universities.
In a world where entrepreneurship is often expected to happen in the evening and at weekends, women are structurally disadvantaged. One solution lies in buyouts — funding that covers an academic’s teaching and administrative time so they can focus on their business during standard working hours. While some programmes provide this, some participants recommended that it should be standardised. If a founder cannot pursue their venture during the day, the venture often fails to launch at all.
Debunking stereotypes about entrepreneurship
The leap from a secure academic career to the precarious world of startups is significantly larger for women. Evidence suggests that women-led businesses attract lower levels of investment, meaning female academics are often asked to take a higher personal risk for a lower probability of funding.
The discussion touched on the need to debunk the Elon Musk stereotype of 80-hour work weeks, which alienates many potential founders. Instead, the ecosystem should highlight:
Social Impact: Motivating founders by focusing on the societal change their research can achieve.
Alternative Models: Recognising that not every spinout needs the high-growth VC route. Bootstrapping, consulting, and grant-led models are equally valid paths to impact.
Equity and cap tables
Participants raised the role of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) and the negotiation of cap tables (how ownership of the company is split). Investors and founders alike warned that aggressive university demands for equity are “killing deals before they are born.”
Stories were shared of universities demanding 50% or even 60% equity in exchange for intellectual property, leaving the founders with too little ownership to attract external investors. Moreover, when founders’ stakes are diluted to this extent, there is less incentive for them to do well. Alongside this, a lack of transparency often results in information asymmetry, where female founders — who may be less likely to have aggressive negotiation networks — accept uninvestable terms.
There was a clear call for:
Founder-friendly equity templates to standardise expectations.
Pro bono legal support for female founders to give them agency during negotiations.
Transparency tools to highlight which universities are offering fair deals.
Moving beyond the deficit model
The session concluded with the need to move away from the ‘deficit model’ — which assumes women lack the skills or confidence to be entrepreneurs — and toward an ecosystem approach that fixes the environment.
International examples, such as the University of Virginia, show that simple changes can have outsized impacts. Offering drop-in sessions for early invention disclosure and covering initial licensing fees can lower the bottom rungs of the ladder.
Participants also stressed that the ecosystem must expand beyond traditional STEM fields. With women more prevalent in Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts (SHAPE), the UK is missing a massive opportunity by not having robust structures to commercialise non-traditional ideas like educational tools or social ventures.
Re-ordering priorities
The underlying message from the session was that the UK must do more to help unleash the potential of those who would like to leave the university ecosystem but currently feel unable to.
The session concluded with the point that a lack of clarity in the system is an even greater barrier for women. As the government looks to boost the UK’s R&D intensity, fixing the leaky pipeline of female spinouts will be essential to ensuring that British research doesn’t just win awards but also builds the industries of the future.
Resources recommended in this discussion:
Women Entrepreneur Financing and Investment Toolkit: A GIZ guide for moving towards fixing the systemic issues in the environment that hinders female entrepreneurs.
Ideas to Impact: The Entrepreneurs Network’s report, which we produced in partnership with Barclays, on the experiences of female academic entrepreneurs in Britain’s spinout ecosystem.
Spotlight on Spinouts: An ongoing initiative at the Royal Academy of Engineering that tracks university equity stakes to identify where uninvestable or unfair cap table terms are killing deals.
ARC Accelerator’s Jargon Buster: A resource designed to help demystify language around entrepreneurship.