#  Executive Summary

WeHubs is a coordination and support action (CSA) aimed at providing a strong
support to women web entrepreneurs (existing and potential) in Europe. WeHubs
seeks to create a favourable environment for women web entrepreneurs, by
linking together local fragmented web entrepreneurship ecosystem nodes into
the **first European Network for Women Web Entrepreneurs Hubs** . The WeHubs
network will facilitate knowledge sharing between relevant stakeholders,
develop dedicated services for women web entrepreneurs and offer access to
relevant events, platforms and support structures. In this respect the project
will foster the creation and scaling of web start-ups created or co-founded by
women, strengthen the existing web entrepreneurs ecosystems through networking
and complementary services and support the emergence of a dynamic European
ecosystem for women web entrepreneurs contributing to the formulation of
relevant policies, support the implementation of Startup Europe initiative and
the wider enforcement of the European digital sector.

In order to achieve the WeHubs goals, we will deliver during the lifetime of
the project activities were we will gather different types of data. To be sure
to comply with the strict requirements of the European commission this Data
management plan will serve as a manual to describe the process of gathering
the information, preserving and archiving it.

The main findings that will be subject to this DMP refers to:

  * 2 questionnaires linked with the following tasks: 

  

o T2.1 Questionnaire targeting women entrepreneurship ecosystems o T2.2
Questionnaire targeting women web entrepreneurs

  * T2.2 in depth interviews identified based on mapping the initiatives 

  

  * T2.5 face-to face interviews to the participants of the events in order to gain knowledge on the added value of WeHubs for them 

  

  * T3.5 ideas competition for women o the reach out to potential applicants will be guaranteed through the mapping actions T2.2 

  

This DMP will be updated during the lifetime of the project and if needed more
activities which are sensitive in terms of data management plan might be
added.

#  Introduction

A Data Management Plan (DMP) describes the data management life cycle for all
data sets that will be collected, processed or generated by a research
project. The document is aiming at outlining the way the consortium will
collect and manage data and information from the involved stakeholders. It
should contains:

  * The nature of the information gathered; 

  

  * The methodology used for the collection; 

  

  * The procedure used for the analysis; 

  

  * The main findings and conclusion; 

  

  * The way findings and data will be shared and preserved. 

  

The DMP is not a fixed document as it evolves during the lifetime of the
project. The consortium foresees to provide an update version at the end of
the first year of the project and in any case once the main research conducted
in the project framework will be achieved.

The main findings that will be subject to this DMP refers to D2.1 – needs
analysis of local ecosystem and women web entrepreneurs leading to the
creation of WeHubs Gender Scorecard.

The abovementioned needs analysis refers to tasks 2.1, 2.2 and 2.5 of the
description of action. These activities require to highlight excellent
practices and biographies but also gender dimension and indicators of starting
up and growing a digital business. The report will describe the various web
entrepreneur ecosystems across Europe and analyse their needs: state of the
art, good practices, criticalities, knowledge & tools gaps and needs.

#  Data set

##  Description of the nature of the information

The main set of information to be collected and analysed in the framework of
the project will come from WP2 – setting up a European Network of women web
entrepreneurs hubs. In Task 2.1 stakeholders from the business incubators
networks and organizations providing support to start ups will be mapped and
interviewed for an assessment of current offers and how they could be made
more gender sensitive. Respondents will be identified based on mapping the
existing networks and other EU level research and mapping initiatives. In Task
2.2 individual start uppers or women joining teams and in various stages of
business development will be interviewed, including some failed experiences in
order to highlight gaps and hindering factors. Specific women’s experiences,
needs, and difficulties they had to face in the various steps of business
start-up will be collected sensitively by experienced interviewers and with
their permission within the context of better understanding the reasons for
failure. Part of the task 2.2 are also in depth interviews. This detailed
approach thanks to depth interviews will help us to set the ground both to the
design and provision of services to women web entrepreneurs and the ecosystem
stakeholders. In Task 2.5. Face-to face interviews to the participants of the
events will be conducted. Finally, in Task 3.5 we will reach out to potential
applicants through the mapping actions T2.2 in order to award the ideas
competition for women.

As agreed with the PO and stated in the DoA, for all the foreseen research
activities the WeHubs consortium will apply the following procedures which
will be better specified and defined:

  1. Non-disclosure and privacy protection statements complying with EU and national legislation will be signed by task leaders and WP leaders and privacy/non-disclosure statements and information on data collection and data treatment will be made available to all respondents to all research actions. 

  

  2. Collected data will be: textual answers to an online survey; audio taped interviews and/or textual in depth interviews (T. 2.1, 2.2 and 2.5); pictures, audio and/or videotaped interviews and/or pictures (T 4.2) 

  

  3. All collected data will be treated anonymously and numerically identified in T 2.1, 2.2 and 2.5. 

  

  4. Task leaders will be responsible and accountable for data storage and treatment after the end of the project. Collected raw information in T 2.1 and 2.2 (texts and audio files of interviews as well as answers to questionnaires) will not be published online and/or made available to the public anyway. 

  

  5. For the specific release and dissemination of success stories in T 4.2 identified respondents will be involved in the contents design of their ‘story’ and will have to provide written and signed authorization to the release and publication of any audio/video/textual contents related to their own personal experiences. 

  

  6. All original, irreplaceable electronic project data and electronic data from which individuals might be identified will be stored on Task Leaders supported media and secure server space or similar; such data will never be stored on temporary storage media nor cloud services, unless fully compliant with national and EU regulation on data protection. 

  

  7. All research data will be accessible to partners of the project being in charge of the specific research action, as well as the Ethics auditors. 

  

  

At the moment and since the project started, partners are carrying T2.1 and
T2.2 and the first version of D1.2 will refer mainly to the results T2.1.

##  Methodology of collection and analysis

The instrument chosen for collecting the set of information in both T2.1 and
T2.2 is an online questionnaire available on WeHubs website. (Please find two
questionnaires in Annex).

Concerning the T2.1 Questionnaire, We have organized the questions in several
segments:

  * Name and status of the node and what is the origin of their revenues. Basically, we are looking to understand the impact of private initiative, and the influence of the public money on their women oriented offerings. 

  

  * Kind of services the node offers and trying to understand the core activity of this node, because a lot of node have differentiated them and are trying to innovate in new activities to attract start-ups. It is important to understand their global business model and see if, how and how much women represent a part of this business model (what does it cost to attract women, what action or service could be best fit to attract what segment of women, and what is the return related to women for these organizations). 

  

  * We’ve asked several questions to try to understand what stage of development of the web start-up they are interested to address in terms of services and how they select the start-ups they would support, on which criteria. We try to understand at what stage of the development of the start-up women would need more support to become web entrepreneur. 

  

  * Having a better overview of the different services offered will give us better understanding of the dynamics of the ecosystems regarding women web entrepreneurs and what lever can be triggered in the local ecosystems to attract more women into web entrepreneurship. 

  

  * We have dedicated a specific set of questions related to the action/offerings concerning women more directly, trying to understand the motivations of the organization, and their approach to evaluate the results, what are their strength regarding women entrepreneurship, what they think is needed to improve women entrepreneurship and what they are willing to do in that direction. 

  

  * We ask also to the organizations what main obstacles they see to women entrepreneurship in their day to day activities and how to solve them by individual, local or more global actions. 

  

Our focus in Task 2.1 is driven to understand how the nodes in an ecosystem
are addressing women entrepreneurs’ needs when they offer a set of services,
resources, facilities and different kinds of aids to women entrepreneurs to
accomplish their projects.

For the analysis of the questionnaires we have proceedeed with a bottom up
approach. Having this kind of approach meant we tackled the nodes through a
survey at the highest level of granularity to understand and characterize
their activities regarding web entrepreneurs. This approach is based on
complementing the survey’s data with observations, experience, and
identification of the real practices on the field among the nodes, the
stakeholders of the start-up ecosystems.

About Task 2.2.and the survey targeting women web entrepreneurs, research
tools which have been used are a questionnaire through an on line survey and
in depth interviews.

_Table n°1._  
  
<table>  
<tr>  
<th>

_**Method and technical support** _

</th>  
<th>

_**Aim** _

</th>  
<th>

_**Target** _

</th>  
<th>

_**Achieved target by 30/09/2015** _

</th> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

Questionnaire (multiple choices + open questions)- _Respondants asked to
identify themselves and fill in name/surname and emails._

Operated on line through

GoogleForms

</td>  
<td>

Draw an overall picture of how women are experiencing web entrepreneurship and
support services in Europe (no statistical sampling)

</td>  
<td>

Reach out to 600, collecting minimum

450 answers

</td>  
<td>

137 complete answers, valid ones:

95\.

</td> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

In depth interviews

Held on the phone-skype or GoToMeeting and

audiorecorded

</td>  
<td>

Collecting more detailed and fine grained individual experiences of women web
entrepreneurs as well as suggestions on how to make the European start up
scene and ecosystems more gender inclusive.

</td>  
<td>

Min. 50

</td>  
<td>

29

</td> </tr> </table>

The questionnaire has been structured into 4 sections, for a total of 46
questions (see  _Full Questionnaire_ _at this link_ )  . Design of the
questionnaire has been guided mainly by two intentions:

  1. using some indicators already present within the GEM Report on Women Entrepreneurs, as highlighted in Chapter, 1 in order to try and assess peculiarities of web entrepreneurship when compared to already existing cross sectoral studies on web entrepreneurship 

  

  2. aligning to categories and terminology already used in the T 2.1 Survey, with the goal of making the analysis of women’s need an interesting knowledge source for triggering reflections and debate within the ecosystems communities and business support organizations in particular and stimulate the setting up of the WeHubs Network. 

  

  

  * The first section “ _Your business story and motivation_ ” (Q3 to Q12) aims at gathering information on funding sources (Q3; Q4), eventual previous mergers, restructuring or termination of previous companies (Q5; Q7), main motivations driving women web entrepreneurs (Q6; Q8), self confidence perception and fear of failure as well as the importance of referring to other women as role models. 

  

  * The second section of the questionnaire “ _Your experience with support services to entrepreneurs”_ has been designed in view of assessing women’s feedback on services in startup ecosystems, from difficulties in identifying the right organizations for any specific needs they had (Q15), to perceptions of the quality of services they accessed (Q13; Q14; Q16), the degree the same services have actually met their needs (Q18), and if /any of those were targeted at women only asking for a title-description (open question Q19). The typology of structures and services has been kept the same as for 2.1 survey, incorporating some elements from EBN internal membership survey for Business Support Organizations. 

  

  * In addition, we have asked respondents to express their opinions about the capacity of services to startups and digital businesses to reach out to women (Q20), the suitability of offered services in terms of work life balance and the availability of family friendly services. We have also focused on perceived usefulness of possible gender oriented changes into startup ecosystems 

  

(Q23; Q24), based on the WeHubs Conceptual Map for gendered transformations
(See Chapter 1, Figure 1), in order to test them against women web
entrepreneurs’ opinions before using them as guiding dimensions for the WeHubs
Scorecard. We also aimed at collecting good examples and proposals for
“services, measures, tools, campaigns, media actions for supporting women’s
start-up” from women themselves (Q25; Q26).

  * The third section titled “Your experience as a woman in web entrepreneurship” was finalized at assessing some of the gender dimensions of web entrepreneurship: to this purpose a first question was dedicated to identify the main challenges in business creation (Q27), to continue with experience of gender biased treatment (Q28), its frequency (Q29), and the agents behind it (Q30) including descriptions of direct experiences Q31). Furthermore this section explored about work life balance issues, and the reasons why this is or it is not a problematic area for women web entrepreneurs (Q32). 

  

  * In the fourth section “Your Business” we asked for basic background information about businesses’ age and sectors (Q34; Q33 respectively), growth rate in the last business year (Q35) team and staff composition (Q36; Q37; Q38; Q39) and geographical market scope (Q40). 

  

  * Finally the last section was dedicated to respondents’ demographics asking for place of birth/residency for identifying -migration-mobility factors (Q41; Q42), education levels and household features (Q44; Q45). 

  

  * Based on the same dimensions and indicators, in depth interviews had the objective of getting more fine grained knowledge about women’s experiences in starting up and running web businesses, views and experiences on the ecosystems, their services and proposals for improvement, collecting insiders’ opinion about the lack of women among web entrepreneurs as well as concrete suggestions- on how to promote change (see attached structure for the interview Annex II). 

  

Other Tasks where data collection is extensively foreseen are T.2.5 which
foresees in presence interviews with participants to events and T4.2 based on
video interviews with selected successful entrepreneurs.

Moreover, the WeHubs consortium ensures that all the information provided
through the questionnaire will be kept anonymous, data will be treated and
shared by partners responsible for this action only. All collected data will
be published in an aggregated way on the project's website and fully respect
the privacy and data protection rights, according to EU regulations complying
with Directive 95/46 EC and Ethics guidelines in data storage and treatment
within H2020.

##  Findings

Findings of T2.1 refer to what service entrepreneurship ecosystems offer, to
whom, when, how they are managing their resources and how they reach their
goals, should they be financial or not. Data were analyzed and presented in an
aggregated way and fully anonimized in D 2.1.1.

Findings from T2.2 explored the needs of women web entrepreneurs also in
regard to their experiences with business support organizations and their
perceptions about how to make ecosystems more women friendly. Data were
anonymized and analyzed in an aggregate fashion in D2.1.2, and made available
on the WeHubs Web Site in a summarized version through 4 main infographics.

Findings from T2.5 will be part of D.2.4 Sustainability Plan.

Findings from the success stories video interviews will be part of the D.4.2
Success Stories Report and the video interviews will be showcased on line on
the WeHubs Website.

#  Standards and metadata

Together with the analysis of the questionnaires, Partners reviewed existing
document and literature on the topics. A this stage, and mainly for the
analysis of T2.1, partners reviewed:

  * EU Entrepreneurship Action Plan 2020 

  

  * Statistical Data on Women Entrepreneurs in Europe, September 2014, EU commission 

  

  * Evaluation on Policy: Promotion of Women Innovators and Entrepreneurship, July 2008, EU commission 

  

  * The Economist: Tech Startup, a Cambrian Moment 

  

  * The Accelerator Assembly 

  

  * The Startup Genome report (2) 

  

For T2.2 a comprehensive literature on the issues at stake was reviewed, which
was made avaialble in the References’ list of D2.1.2

Among the most relevant documents providing inputs for elaborating qualitative
indicators we can mention:

  * Ahl, H. (2006). Why research on women entrepreneurs needs new directions. 

  

_Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice_ , _30_ (5), 595-621. European
Commission (2013b).  Study on Women Active in the ICT Sector. _Publications
Office of the European Union_ , Luxembourg.

  * European Commission (2008). Evaluation on Policy: Promotion of Women Innovators and Entrepreneurship. _DG Enterprise and Industry_ , Brussels. 

  

  * European Commission (2004). Promoting Entrepreneurship amongst women. _Best Report n°2, DG Enterprise_ , Brussels 

  

  * Hughes, K.D. Jennings, J. Carter, S. & J. Brush (2012). Extending Women's Entrepreneurship Research in New Directions. _Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, _ vol. 36, Issue 3, pp. 429-442 _._

  

  * Kelley, D. J., Brush, C.G., Greene, P. G. & J. Litovsky (2012). Global Entrepreneurship 

  

Monitor. _2012 Women’s Report, Global Entrepreneurship Research Association_ .
Retrieved from  _www.gemconsortium.org_

  * OECD (2014). Enhancing women’s economic empowerment and business leadership in 

  

OECD countries. _OECD Publication_

#  Data sharing

Data will be publicly shared as aggregated information about main findings and
answers in the deliverable D2.1. The consortium have also access to the
individual answered questionnaires via online tool (Google Forms document)
until the end of the project.

While working on the reports, partners share the answers in the shared Dropbox
folder being the main project management tools for sharing materials and as
repository of document. The on line excel sheet comprehensive of all replies
to the questionnaires and related contacts was/is available to Tasks Managers
at the related GoogleForms link and it will still be kept open in the upcoming
months to increase the number of respondants. Downloaded excels with updated
questionnaires was shared among all partners on the common DropBox folder.

The audiotaped in depth interviews were and still are stored among partners
only on the DropBox shared folder.

#  Archiving and preservation

The consortium at this stage is planning to make an electronic copy of the
answers at the end of the project and delete all online information from
Google Forms. Further solution will be discussed with the project officer
during the project lifetime.

#  Conclusions

This version of the DMP as anticipated is a draft version that needs to be
finalized once the consortium will have a clearer idea of the amount of
findings in its possession and the complete analysis.