Chaire pour l'entrepreneuriat des femmes, volet recherche

Research team:

Anne BORING (responsable du projet, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, LIEPP & PRESAGE)
Maria José GONZÁLEZ FUENTES (assistante de recherche)

Project description:

The aim of the Chair for Women's Entrepreneurship is to create and scientifically evaluate interventions aimed at reducing the barriers that women face in their careers, whether in accessing leadership positions or embarking on entrepreneurship.

Inaugurated in April 2018 at Sciences Po, it is aimed at both female students who may be discouraged by entrepreneurship, business leaders wishing to be guided in the choice of possible interventions or public authorities wishing to make as many people as possible aware of good practice.

It aims to develop entrepreneurial skills, in particular soft skills, which are increasingly necessary for career development in a labour market undergoing radical change, so that more women can rise to positions of responsibility.

The Chair is developing activities in three areas, supported by the Centre for Entrepreneurship and the LIEPP:

Research: developing work, mainly in experimental economics, sociology and social psychology, on the development of interventions aimed at reducing the obstacles that discourage women from becoming entrepreneurs or, more generally, from attaining positions of responsibility.
Pedagogy: putting the results of the research into practice, in order to create new courses and one-off workshops to develop the skills needed for professional careers in a changing labour market.
Disseminating knowledge: informing society more widely about effective interventions to promote women's entrepreneurship and leadership.

"After several years devoted to research on gender and the study of stereotypes, this chair will enable us to go further in analysing possible interventions to propose genuinely effective solutions to promote women's leadership," explains Anne Boring (researcher affiliated to LIEPP), who is responsible for the chair.

Drawing on the expertise of LIEPP and PRESAGE and providing better information to universities, businesses and public authorities

The Chair draws on Sciences Po's unique expertise in evaluation, developed in particular within the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques, a laboratory of excellence (Labex) created in 2011.

The Chair's research work will form part of the LIEPP's Discrimination and Social Inequalities research area, which aims to contribute to the public debate by assessing the extent of and trends in discrimination in France and analysing the challenges it poses for political action to combat social inequalities.

The Chair's programme also draws on research developed at Sciences Po in the field of gender equality, in particular through the Programme d'Enseignement et de Recherche des Savoirs sur le Genre (PRESAGE).

Thanks to this expertise, the Chair will produce research work, the results of which will aim to better inform universities, companies and public authorities. The research work will focus on the scientific evaluation of interventions aimed at reducing the impact of gender stereotypes and biases that hold back women's professional ambitions. The programme will contribute to the development of research into the best approaches for fostering women's entrepreneurial skills (know-how and interpersonal skills). The first policy brief will focus on the issue of public speaking by women and interventions to help them develop their skills in this area.

The Chair is supported by the CHANEL Foundation, Goldman Sachs, the AXA Research Fund and PepsiCo.

Read Anne Boring's LIEPP interview

Read the press kit

Poster of the project - June 2022