College of Social Sciences

 The Digital Society and Economy Interdisciplinary Research Theme is working in partnership with the Productivity Institute in addressing the role of digital technology in the economy. Gemma Milne, the Digital Society and Economy Interdisciplinary Research Fellow, caught up with Daniel about the research he is embarking on. 

 

GM: Hi Daniel, can you start by telling me what brought you to the University of Glasgow? 

 

DW: I completed my Masters in Politics and Technology from the Technical University of Munich this year, and was keen to embark on a career in research. I previously was a Research Associate for the Isle of Mann government, looking at themes of employability in its small localised context, specifically investigating talent drain. We were curious about young people who go off to university and move away, and what might incentivise them to stay. After that project completed, I wanted to continue working on similar research projects, and that led me here. 

 

GM: Brilliant. Tell me a little about the context of the research project you’re working on here at Glasgow? 

 

DW: I’m working with Carolyn Currie, who is CEO of Women Enterprise Scotland, researching gender-specific challenges in the SME business sector. For context, women only get 53% of the capital that men do, and of the £23billion invested in UK startups in 2021, only 1.4% went to all-female teams. This is perpetuating a deeply inequitable society and economy. So Women’s Enterprise Scotland has created a crowdfunding platform aimed at female entrepreneurs, based on similar models that have had success in the US and Canada in the post-financial crisis era, when banks have been withdrawing from the SME investment market. In Canada, for example, external financial sources like crowdfunding are accessed by over 40% of SMEs, and in the US, we’re seeing 42% of all businesses now owned by women – these metrics are obviously way higher than in the UK, so this new platform is acting as a pilot to explore changing things here in Scotland.  

 

GM: Great – so how will you be approaching the research? 

 

DW: So I’ll be researching this crowdfunding platform. I’ll be doing participatory observation of the platform itself; interviewing the lead developers who created the programme; and interviewing people like Carolyn Currie who leads on the project itself to gauge their hopes and expectations. Then I’ll be doing participatory observation of the businesses involved – looking at how crowdfunding meshes with their day-to-day operations, and how they utilise it. We’ll then follow that up with analysing the data from the platform, in terms of how much the companies raise, what the values were of the individual donations, and which kinds of businesses and in what sectors are more successful. We’ll then be presenting the results at a roundtable event with policymakers from the Scottish Government, in the hope that they can include alternative financing options such as crowdfunding into policy decisions. 

 

GM: What’s the specific Scottish context with this project? 

 

DW: It’s quite a unique and relatively niche project – there’s not anything like this going on, certainly not elsewhere in Scotland and perhaps only in London when thinking about the rest of the UK. There’s already over 2000 member businesses registered for the platform, which shows the high level of interest in the Scottish SME sector. Having the specific women-led approach too is particularly of interest and hopefully will generate some really interesting results.  

 

GM: You’re coming at this project with both a background in politics and technology, as well as in looking at localised contexts for new developments – what do you think are going to be some of the key areas of interest, or things you’ll be looking out for? 

 

DW: From my experience, what is often the most interesting part of any research project is seeing what doesn’t work – so finding out what the pitfalls might be, the challenges the businesses face, and the differences and dynamics between the different sectors. There are businesses from beauticians to STEM-based companies, so there’s a huge variety on there. There are donation-based crowdfunding platforms all over the world – it’s not a particularly new phenomenon – but none of them really dedicate this specific kind of support and resource specifically for women, so there will be some really unique insights into gender dynamics. This is hugely important – at the Productivity Matters conference, we had Lindsay Keegans, Director of Global Sales at Ooni Pizza Ovens, and she spoke about how important gender equality is, but that it often gets lost in business hiring policies, that it’s just seen as ticking a box.  

 

GM: It’s an interesting different tact then isn’t it – it’s not about either/or, we obviously have to have good policies around hiring, but instead focusing not on just getting women on the teams, but actually funding the teams of women that already exist and are emerging. 

 

DW: Exactly, this project looking at how crowdfunding helps women get businesses off the ground I think will give us some really interesting insights around these inequitable gender dynamics.  

 

GM: What do you think about the tension that exists in looking to technology platforms for solutions to social problems? 

 

DW: The crowdfunding platform is an internet-based platform, which just wouldn’t have been possible 15 years ago. I think that when technology is used correctly – and by that, I guess I mean responsibly – it can be a great enabler of producing a more equitable society. We of course have to be careful about how technology platforms are used and that they don’t have exploitation built in.  

 

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The Scotland Productivity Forum is led by the University of Glasgow. It is involved in the implementation of research insights, the design of practical business and policy interventions, and in providing input to the development of the Institute’s future research agenda.

First published: 27 November 2023