DkIT PhD graduate contributes to major OECD policy report

Bridging the Finance Gap for Women Entrepreneurs: Insights from academic and policy research (OECD 2025) was launched at a joint OECD-ICSB signature event in Paris on 3rd November. Part of a collaboration between the OECD and the Global Women’s Entrepreneurship Policy Research Network (GWEP), the report contains 29 policy insight chapters authored by leading entrepreneurship scholars around the globe. The chapters provide a glimpse into the funding landscape for women entrepreneurs across different OECD and emerging and developing country economies. They also highlight the particular challenges women entrepreneurs encounter in accessing finance in their respective countries. Policy recommendations are also offered for local government. Dr Ogunjemilusi contributed to the chapter on Ireland.

The OECD report concluded that policy makers should ensure effective interventions adopt a targeted, inclusive and evidenced approach and reflect the lived experiences of women entrepreneurs. A common finding across several countries, including Ireland, was the need to simplify regulatory frameworks to accommodate micro-enterprises.

The chapter on Ireland (Chapter 19 - Ireland: Policy insights on early-stage finance) recommended that policy makers:

• Continue to provide networking and entrepreneurship training programmes with embedded funding opportunities
• Offer financial mentoring to help enhance applicants’ funding applications
• Make funding support available to sectors in which women currently predominate
• Create women-only entrepreneurship funding schemes with built in mentoring to encourage women entrepreneurs to transition from micro-enterprise to larger businesses

Commenting on the report’s publication, Dr Ogunjemilusi said:

“It was an honour to be invited by my supervisor, Professor Colette Henry, to contribute to this report. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to reference some of the empirical work from my thesis to highlight the key issues women entrepreneurs in Ireland face when accessing finance.”

Kehinde’s doctoral thesis, entitled “A Critical Exploration of Women’s Entrepreneurship Policy and Access to Finance in Ireland: An Ecosystems Approach,” focused on exploring the gendered nature of the Irish entrepreneurial ecosystem, specifically examining women entrepreneurs at the intersection of policy and access to finance. It was supervised by Professor Colette Henry, Dr Brian Boyd and Dr Kate Johnston.

Kehinde is currently serving as the Research Lead at Simon Communities of Ireland on the COMHOM project, a five-country European collaboration using digital tools, data and social innovation to transform responses to homelessness. Kehinde leads the Irish Living Lab, guiding research and stakeholder engagement to co-create evidence-based solutions and support service providers in adopting innovative, data-driven practices. Kehinde has since been invited to contribute to two major research texts on entrepreneurship and gender. 

The full OECD report can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1787/75b52972-en.

Reference:

OECD/GWEP (2025), Bridging the Finance Gap for Women Entrepreneurs: Insights from Academic and Policy Research, OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/75b52972-en.