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The South Yorkshire Action plan

The Challenge

Using Daniel Isenberg’s recognised model of the six main domains for a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem (illustrated below), TECH SY stakeholders have co-defined a set of challenges that this action plan sets out to address. 


Isenberg states in a 2014 article for the Harvard Review titled ‘What an entrepreneurial ecosystem actually is’:“no one owns or represents an entrepreneurship ecosystem, there can be no one objective that motivates all of the actors.”.


This statement holds true a decade later and underpins a great deal of ecosystem thinking. As the public sector, we seek to achieve economic growth and prosperity for our places and citizens, but this is not the driver for entrepreneurs to start up businesses, or for large financial institutions to lend and invest, or for universities to undertake ground-breaking research. The public sector cannot be the leader of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, but it has a huge role to play in creating the right conditions. 



With this in mind, stakeholders have co-defined the core problem as being:


"South Yorkshire’s tech ecosystem is fragmented, lacking the coordinated finance, talent, leadership and market access companies need to start and scale." 

If this is aligned with the model of a successful ecosystem set out above, the following challenges which feed into this core problem have been highlighted by stakeholders:


Challenges by Area

Area of interest
Challenges identified by stakeholders

Policy

  • A perceived lack of strong regional-level leadership in the tech ecosystem

  • A short-term and sometimes fragmented public policy and programming landscape

  • Tech being often / sometimes treated as a ‘vertical’, whereas it needs to be considered as an enabler across all of the region’s high-growth sectors

Finance

  • Lack of seed funding and private sector investment

  • Uncoordinated finance offer

  • Poor connections into UK and global investment networks

Support

  • People and businesses do not know what support is available

  • Support is delivered at different levels of government, some of which are not well joined up which makes it difficult for founders (users) to navigate

  • The region lacks fit-for-purpose (follow-on and specialist) space and facilities in the places that make sense for founders

  • Incubation delivery and facilities vary in scope

Culture

  • The region is poorly perceived as a place for tech companies to start and scale, in part due to the region’s industrial legacy

  • There is a lack of an entrepreneurial culture and mindset amongst local people which can result in an ambition ceiling amongst local founders

  • Multiple stakeholders sometimes pull in different directions

Markets

  • There is a lack of connections, e.g. between universities and businesses; between corporates / buyers and local suppliers of tech products and services

Human Capital

  • There is insufficient high-value talent in the region, coupled with global competition for talent

  • A mismatch between supply and demand of talent


Our Inflection Point?

Athe 2026 South Yorkshire Tech Summit, Dealroom's Head of Ecosystems Aoife Morrin positioned South Yorkshire's against Helsinki and Pittsburgh of 10 years ago, where they were roughly valued at £3bn. Shown below, Dealroom's data highlights their ecosystems at that stage experienced significant growth as each of their ecosystems began to see their value multiply rapidly. In her Keynote speech at the summit, Helsinki's Sarita Runeberg (CEO of Maria 01) highlighted Helsinki's decade long journey to the success they thrive off today. It started when the community decided to pull together.



TECH SY has seen a significant shift of the South Yorkshire ecosystem, with experienced founders giving back. Our ambition is to see an action plan fully supported by the ecosystem, pulling together to see our own significant growth of the region's tech economy.  


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