Professor Sara Carter, OBE
Director, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde
Sara Carter BA (Lancaster), PhD (Stirling) is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Head of the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the university of Strathclyde Business School. Sara Carter is also Visiting Professor at Nordland Research Institute, Norway.
Professor Carter's research focuses on entrepreneurship and the small business sector, with a particular focus on the experiences of specific entrepreneurial groups, including women, rural entrepreneurs and, more recently, the strategic growth and performance issues of UK small businesses. Professor Carter undertook the first UK-government funded study of women entrepreneurs in 1988, and has published a number of other studies focused on female self-employment and business ownership over the past twenty years. Her most recent work on women's enterprise, with Dr Eleanor Shaw, "Women's Business Ownership: Recent Research and Policy Developments" was published by the DTi Small Business Service in November 2006. Sara Carter was recently appointed as a member of the government's Women's Enterprise Task Force, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Banking Alliance for Women. In 2007, Professor Carter was awarded the Prowess 'Making An Impact' Award for her research into women's enterprise.
Professor Carter was director of the UK's largest business surveys, Barriers to Small Business Growth, published 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, co-authored by Professor Colin Mason and Dr Stephen Tagg. Papers from these surveys have been published in Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Journal of Banking and Finance and Environment and Planning. Sara is an editor of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, reviews editor of the International Small Business Journal and an editorial board member of nine peer-reviewed research journals. Her publications include two textbooks 'Enterprise and Small Business: Principles, Practice and Policy' (2001, 2006 2nd edition) and 'Women as Entrepreneurs' (1992) and several academic and policy papers on entrepreneurship and small business.