Train 2000 - The Centre for Women's Enterprise and Employment

Train 2000 Ltd, supported by its partners Liverpool City Council and Liverpool Vision, are developing the Women's International Centre for Economic Development (WICED) - a key innovator and deliverer of women's enterprise services.

Introduction

There is a huge untapped resource which our society needs to harness effectively - the enterprise of women. The visionary development of the Women's International Centre for Economic Development is, I believe, a significant step forward in harnessing that resource, with implications for the global economy, as well as for Liverpool and the rest of the UK.

There is no doubt that there are still not enough women in business. This is not because women don't have the aspirations or the skills, but because the environment doesn't encourage the development of their entrepreneurial capacity. WICED aims to address this.

It is important because there is not just an economic opportunity being missed here… women's choices have historically been limited, with consequent frustrations and challenges. We need to have more women starting and growing their own businesses, and we need to create the conditions and infrastructure that will help achieve this. This world-leading concept now taking shape in Liverpool will, both through the physical form and intellectually, provide a beacon by which to raise all our aspirations for women's economic development.

Councillor Flo Clucas
Liverpool City Council
Project Champion

By bringing together the elements of research; gendered business incubation and high quality business support, we will achieve our aim of more women's businesses, creating more wealth and prosperity.

That is what WICED is all about.

WICED Background

Train 2000 Ltd, supported by its partners Liverpool City Council and Liverpool Vision, are developing the Women's International Centre for Economic Development (WICED) which will be a key innovator and deliverer of women's enterprise services. Train 2000, now an integrated part of WICED, are seeking to build on our success in reaching and delivering quality gendered economic development support to a wider audience of women; service developments and geographical reach by addressing the issue of scale and scope of future service design and provision.

The body of published research and experience to date demonstrates the need for a coordinated approach to women's social and economic development policy, research and practice. The development of WICED will play a critical part in achieving current UK Government and EU priorities by contributing to greater financial independence for women, improved equality of opportunity in terms of enterprise and employment, greater community involvement, reduction in family poverty and the provision of role models for other women across the UK, whilst also contributing to the evidence base and future policy through the WICED International Research Hub.

WICED - What it is

The evidence base recommends the implementation of gendered and transformational models of female enterprise support, which complement generalist transactional models. Transformational models represent a significant departure from traditional transactional offerings as they provide demand led gendered entrepreneurial services. In effect, transformational models are configured through female entrepreneurial need as opposed to service provider supply based models.

The WICED transformational model comprises three key components:

Women's Economic Research and Knowledge Hub

WICED is developing an internationally renowned research and knowledge centre on women's enterprise and wider economic development issues which will exploit a growing publicly procured research market on female social and economic development issues.

Women's Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Service

WICED delivers high quality gender-focused economic development and business support programmes concentrating on enterprise culture, leadership, start up, green and knowledge economy enterprises, innovation, growth and sustainability, commissioned through public sector partners.

Women focussed incubation facility

WICED is developing a 2000 sq m state of the art facility housing up to 50 incubation spaces for new and high growth women enterprises. This will be the most significant development of its kind not only in Europe but globally.

WICED is a flagship initiative, creating the conditions and infrastructure for Liverpool's City Region and the North West of England to become the key driver of women's economic development.

WICED Board of Directors

WICED - What we will achieve

We are in the process of establishing a high profile Women's International Centre for Economic Development (WICED), which will contribute to:

• A knowledge base that supports gender equality work within and outside public sector and civil institutions
• Integration into world-wide networks and developing global collaborations and knowledge exchange
• Convening communities of women entrepreneurs; public and third sector practitioners and world class academics to ensure global knowledge transfer mechanisms on business led agendas
• Positioning Liverpool as a city that is friendly to women in business
• Developing a women's enterprise culture that will build upon the local Economic Review 2007 figures that show a positive trend in female entrepreneurship. "Female TEA activity is significantly higher in Merseyside (3.9%) than in the comparator districts which have TEA activity amongst women of just 2.2%. Although the breakdowns are not statistically significant, no City has a level of TEA above 2.6"
• Accelerating the start-up, diversity and sustainability of indigenous women-owned businesses by providing gender-friendly business support and developing highly skilled and customer focused managers within those businesses
• Developing women's participation in quality employment to support a competitive, market driven business environment
• Showing innovation in partnership working with third sector organisations.