Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he has plans to (a) identify and (b) support female-led spin-out tech start-ups in UK Universities.

Innovate UK are currently running an all-women cohort of their Innovation to commercialisation of university research (ICURe) programme, which will identify and support women researchers to explore commercialisation pathways that can lead to spinouts.

Supporting female tech founders and spin-out companies from our universities are important issues that I and colleagues across government are working on.

I am pleased that over time there are more female-led spin-outs, with 32% of spin-outs in 2022 having a female founder, up from 25% in 2017. However, with 68% still having all-male founders, there is still room for improvement.