The Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship will be working alongside Women's Enterprise Scotland (WES) to create an index of women in enterprise in Scotland in an initiative supported also by RBS.
The Index, which will boost research into female entrepreneurship in Scotland, was launched on March 5 at an event organised by RBS at Adam & Co, where Finance Minister John Swinney gave the keynote address.
The data collected through the Index will include details of growth patterns of women-owned businesses (WOBs), in addition to a range of qualitative data on critical issues for the growth of enterprise in Scotland.
It will be used to monitor trends and provide data on the growth of businesses in Scotland for the use of the Scottish Government, the bank and academia.
It is intended to have a minimum of 6000 WOBs on the database which will allow regular surveying, opinion-gathering on critical issues and high level monitoring of trends. A more in-depth Index will comprise 200 majority-owned female businesses from a range of sectors, turnovers and employment numbers, and which will feature a varied demographic profile including age, ethnicity and geography.
The Hunter Centre will be providing specialist academic assistance with the development of the questionnaires and surveys as well as analysing the data gathered, and this work will be overseen by head of department, Professor Sara Carter.