Innovate UK, Britain’s innovation agency, has reversed a decision to award just half the number of grants it had promised to female founders in a funding competition.
25 out of a potential 50 grants, of up to £75,000 each, were originally awarded for the Women in Innovation scheme, despite it receiving 1,452 applications and having "up to £4m" available to grant.
Hundreds of female founders took to social media over the weekend after the outcomes were announced to question the assessment process — and the organisation’s commitment to supporting women. They also called on Innovate UK to award the full 50 grants and explain where the rest of the funding has gone.
On Monday afternoon, Innovate UK announced on LinkedIn that it will now award the full 50 grants, representing a total investment of £4m, “as originally committed”.
“This entire situation underscores the urgent need for Innovate UK and similar institutions to not only recognise but actively address (unconscious/conscious) bias in their processes,” Bridget Greenwood, cofounder of The 200Bn Club, an accelerator for under-represented founders, told Sifted in response to the news.
“While the decision to honour the original 50 grants is a step in the right direction, it’s clear that without concrete measures to ensure fair and equitable assessments, we risk perpetuating the very barriers these programmes are meant to dismantle. It’s time to move beyond good intentions and take meaningful action to support all innovators, regardless of gender.”
The response
On Saturday, Emma Jarvis, founder of femtech company Dearbump, called on Innovate UK to award the full 50 awards. Her LinkedIn post gained over 800 likes and 111 reposts by Monday.
Rachel Carrell, founder of childcare startup Koru Kids, commented: “They've actually just wasted a huge amount of very scarce female founder time. The worst of all outcomes.”
In Innovate UK’s LinkedIn post announcing the reversal of the decision, it apologised for its initial move to award just 25 grants: “As public funders, we must manage our budgets carefully. The decision to only award this number was a mistake and we prioritised wrongly.
“We recognise the impact this has had on the many applicants, and on the community as a whole, and we apologise wholeheartedly.”
Innovate UK also said: “We also want to reassure everyone who applied that we remain committed to supporting and increasing opportunities across the system for women innovators.”
The additional 25 successful applicants will soon be contacted, it adds.
The Women in Innovation scheme, which has been running since 2016, was launched “to encourage more women to apply for Innovate UK funding opportunities” and has awarded over £10m to 200 women, according to the organisation’s website. It invites female founders and senior leaders to apply for grant funding to “develop a game changing novel idea or business innovation”.
Last year, Innovate UK received over 900 applications and funded 50 awards.
Female funding in the UK
The percentage of venture funding that reaches all-female founding teams has stagnated — in the UK and elsewhere in Europe — at just 2%; a statistic described by the UK government’s Women-Led High-Growth Enterprise Taskforce as representing “no improvement in the past decade”.
In the UK, just 18% of high-growth enterprises include one or more women on the founding team — while all-male founding teams make up 82% of high-growth enterprises, according to Beauhurst.
