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Professor Mark Hart

Mark Hart

Economics and Strategy Group

The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme in the Midlands is led by Mark Hart who is Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship in Aston Business School.  He is also Deputy Director of the new national Enterprise Research Centre (www.enterpriseresearch.co.uk) which is jointly hosted at Aston University and the University of Warwick which will focus on a various aspects of small business growth over the next three years.  It is funded jointly by the ESRC, BIS, BBA and the TSB.   

Over the last 35 years, Professor Hart has worked and published extensively in the areas of entrepreneurship, enterprise and small business development and policy.  He jointly manages the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project  in the UK and advises a number of UK Government Departments and the Devolved Administrations on enterprise issues. 

His work on High-Growth Firms (HGFs) at Aston has been influential in shaping policy discussions and actions in the UK and he is currently working for NESTA and the OECD on a  range of follow-up projects.  He has undertaken numerous evaluation studies of business support products and services in the UK and Ireland.

Research Interests

Current Research Projects

Investigating the nature and scale of entreprenurial activity in the UK - co-manages the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) UK project:

  • CRC

  • BIS Media

  • LCR

  • Growth 

Research Themes Include

  • Private sector job creation and destruction in the UK (1998-2008)

  • UKTI R&D

  • Small firm growth and competitiveness: key trends and drivers

  • HGFs - UKTI; UKCES