GENDEX review of the state of the art

The Review State of the Art

When addressing gender and diversity across EU investment, start-up and scale-up communities, it is necessary to provide an outline of existing research, reports, and methodologies to guide the framework for GENDEX, assessment of key indicators, data sources, and methodologies. The GENDEX Review of the State of the Art, written by Tanya Suárez and Brendan Rowan, provides an overview of the definition of diversity and the application within the context of GENDEX. The report also provides a review of existing global literature and recommendation for an assessment framework and indicators that will compose the index to be validated further with experts and the EIC community.

Purpose

This report provides an overview of existing research in the areas of investment and diversity which includes reports, databases, and indices that have data collected on investors and start-ups. Through this document, it was possible to review how and where different methodologies were used, and then determine which factors affect the applicability and replicability of methods or tools to assess diversity in the investment landscape. Even though GENDEX normally targets the European demographic, some data points were found from outside of Europe to provide useful data points for comparison.

This report is broken down into four parts:

• Securing a diverse pipeline for investment – Examines the context of the report, why the data found matters, the gender gap in the investment landscape, and the challenges it faces.
• Scope for review – Highlights the underlying hypotheses, key research questions, and defines diversity in the context of the research that was conducted.
• Existing approaches – Analyses of existing research through the form of databases, reports, and indices while evaluating the methodologies utilised for each of them.
• The methodological framework for GENDEX – The proposal for the framework structure and key metrics that must be assessed.

Its context provides the content and scope for the exploration of the index development.

Why is this important?

The data does not lie. It was found that despite women constituting 51% of the European Union’s population and 39% of its workforce, they are represented in several key areas. The data indicates that there are significant disparities in the number of women founders. The levels of investment companies led by women, and the presence of women among investors. Along with this, it was found that women continue to face barriers as they capture only 25.8% of deal count and 20.5% of deal value in 2023 which are both quite low. These points demonstrate the urgent need to strive for a more diverse ecosystem that can draw from all talent pools available.

Ways to address the gender gap in the investment landscape

There is a persistent gender disparity gap in the investment allocation, which shows that measures must be taken to promote greater gender diversity in this sector. A few suggestions include

• Initiatives aimed at providing support, mentorship, access to funding, and dismantling biases have been found to be relevant to create a more inclusive environment.
• Fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion within investment firms.
• Promoting gender-conscious investment strategies can contribute to narrowing down the gap in the investment landscape.

Do you want to learn more about the findings of the report? Read the full publication here