"Innovate UK's decision is a blow not just to existing female founders but future ones"

This may seem a small reduction numerically but it will have a massive impact symbolically. Innovate UK's decision is a blow not just to existing female founders but future ones. It's really disappointing to hear that the number of awards was cut in half and that the wording was changed after the results were announced. Female founders were relying on this support to bring their innovations to life, and this change undermines the trust they placed in these programs. The only way forward is for Innovate UK to honour the original commitment of 50 awards. This would not only rebuild confidence but also show that Innovate UK truly values and supports female entrepreneurs.

It's hard to believe that, out of 1452 applicants, Innovate UK were unable to make a list of 50 of the requisite quality for the Women In Innovation Awards, most especially given that they awarded 50 grants from a pool of 900 in the previous round. Innovate UK ought to go back over those 1427 other applications as a matter of priority to fix this situation. Earlier this year, I signed up for a business development programme where the 'prize' was support through an Innovate UK grant application process, for which the programme was partly the qualifier for getting through to this stage. When I got to the end I was told by the advisor that the rules of the competition had changed and my business was no longer eligible. The change of goalposts was very frustrating, and I could have saved myself 8 weeks of commitment to the 'business support programme', which is time I won't ever get back.

You can't innovate by underdelivering and that’s what’s happening here. Female founders deserve more than lip service, they deserve the support they were promised. Innovate UK's decision to halve the Women in Innovation Awards isn’t just trimming fat, it’s cutting opportunity and ambition. This broken promise to the women fuelling our future is a step backward for innovation and a slap in the face to countless women who dare to lead. Innovate UK must honour the 50 awards as pledged: anything less diminishes the value of women in business and stifles the progress we desperately need.

It sounds like a cost cutting exercise for them, as 25 lots of £75k is £1.875 million. But this will backfire badly as it is sending a bad message, seeing as they had committed to the 50 awards at the start of the process.

Innovate UK's decision to award only half of the allocated Women in Innovation Awards is a major blow to women entrepreneurs. Despite nearly 1500 women founders completing the arduous application process, only 25 of 50 possible funding awards were granted, leaving approximately £2 million unallocated.

The announcement comes at a time when the UK's Women-Led High-Growth Enterprise TaskForce has highlighted the systemic gender gap in investment. Despite efforts to encourage more women to start high-growth businesses, the reality remains that only 2p of every £1 of equity investment in the UK goes to fully female-founded businesses.

The move to not fully fund the Women in Innovation Award undermines the value of women-led businesses and sends a disheartening message to aspiring entrepreneurs. Innovate UK must reconsider and honor the original 50 awards to demonstrate its commitment to supporting women.

This is extremely disappointing, not least as it’s a well known fact that female founders are chronically under-funded, receiving roughly 2% of all start-up funding.

The irony of InnovateUK consciously choosing to only select 25 winners rather than 50 (amongst a huge pool of fantastic companies and ideas) is that the success rate for this award is now LOWER than 2%…

I work to support entrepreneurs in accessing funding, and am particularly passionate about supporting female entrepreneurs - who currently receive just 2% of VC funding. Chance of success with this grant when 25 were awarded to 1452 applicants is 1.7%. It is incredibly disappointing that the decision was taken, without explanation and after so many women took the significant time to apply, to award just 50% of what was marketed and budgeted for (which is £4m for this competition from an £8bn total which Innovate UK invests each year). There are applicants coming forward with scores of 80%+ and excellent feedback who did not receive funding. This situation has highlighted a very real issue faced by female founders - I hope Innovate UK will become part of the solution here.

Just for a second, let’s imagine this was an award for only male applicants. Let’s ignore that such an award would be unthinkable because only women can receive special treatment in the name of equality. Assuming it was a male-only award, would people be outraged and questioning that there weren’t enough good male-led businesses to support? Or would the focus be on the issue of rules being changed afterwards?

As a founder (who happens to be female, though that’s irrelevant), I’m frustrated that also this has been turned into a gender issue. Changing the rules is afterwards is plain wrong, but debating whether this undermines the value of female entrepreneurs is what indeed puts the value women bring into question and makes us look like victims - why would we want that?

Why do women automatically assume things happen because they are seen as lesser? What if we didn't? What if we aren't?

If we don't want things to be about gender, we have to stop making them about gender.

Being a female founder is incredibly tough, and as someone who has been there and has supported hundreds through accelerators, workshops, and entrepreneurship programming, the hurdles faced as female founder are not insignificant. Competitions and grants like these not only provide critical funding, support, and mentoring, but also a morale boost and external validation (that can then be leveraged for future funding or partnerships) for underrepresented founders.

This news has been disheartening. I think it this demands be more than just a statement, but rather a conversation. We need to do more, and expect more, as an innovation ecosystem.

I comment as a founder impacted by this. The original intent of the Women in Innovation Awards was to inspire and support a diverse group of female innovators across various sectors. Cutting back on the number of awards will limit the diversity of innovations supported and reduce the overall impact of the program on the UK's innovation ecosystem. Trust has been deeply eroded and many issues have been uncovered not just from this year’s cohort but historical cohorts too.