GEM PROJECT

With more than 24,000 annual surveys to the Spanish population aged 18-64, the Opinometre Institute is the provider that contributes and performs the largest fieldwork at the international level to the GEM observatory on entrepreneurship

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is the most ambitious and comprehensive international observatory on entrepreneurship worldwide

Designed to estimate the entrepreneurial activity in the populations of the participating countries and their main characteristics, the results of the observatory are based on estimates obtained from representative samples of the target populations that have a minimum size of 2,000 cases per country

Spain participates since 2000 in the project and, the Opinometre Institute won the adjudication contest as field supplier for the Spanish team in 2001, evaluated and assigned by GERA, the administrative institution representative of GEM at London Business School

As of 2003, the project grew until the implementation of a research team in each Autonomous Community. The sample grew in parallel and, since 2006, ranges between 23,000 and 30,000 surveys per year for the entire Spanish territory, constituting the largest contribution of data made by a country within the project (between 12 and 15% of the world total depending on the year)

Currently, GEM Spain is represented by the Spanish Network of Regional Teams GEM, constituted by researchers from 19 universities and led by the UCEIF-CISE Foundation. GEM has created more than 100 teams around the world and, today, has a regular annual participation of 55 to 60 countries

The main contributions of the GEM observatory

The most visible indicator of the observatory is the TEA or total entrepreneurial activity rate, which represents the proportion of individuals aged 18-64 of a population involved in an activity that is operational in the market a maximum of 3.5 years

The monitor classifies entrepreneurial activity in different typologies such as, for example, by opportunity and necessity, with or without an innovative component, by degree of competitiveness, use of new technologies, export intensity and many other characteristics such as sector, size, number of owners and others

Another important section offered by GEM is the estimation and analysis of the presence of basic entrepreneurial values in the population and, also, the social perception towards entrepreneurship. The monitoring of these indicators over the years allows us to evaluate the entrepreneurial potential of the populations and their pace of evolution towards a proactive mentality such as the one demanded by the current economic scenario and the change from the industrial to the digital era

GEM complements all of the above with the estimation of the proportion of adults who act as informal investors in the population, an aspect not studied by any other source of international information, and also carries out a survey of a representative selection of experts in various conditions of environment (such as, for example, financing, government policies, commercial and physical infrastructures and others), which makes it possible to obtain a diagnosis of the state of the context to undertake, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses

The Opinometre Institute has worked in the last 20 years helping to build this powerful information and analysis tool, not only acting as a supplier of GEM Spain, but also carrying out pilot tests on demand from GEM Global, suggesting new ideas and ways to manage the data, acting as a team consultant (such as for the United Arab Emirates team) and, since 2016, coordinating and leading the realization of the Saudi Arabian GEM report sponsored by Babson Global and based at the MBSC in Jeddah

One of the most important aspects of GEM is its continuous monitoring of the changes and advances that occur around the study of entrepreneurship. Thanks to this vigilance and the innovative spirit of the project, the observatory has remained at the forefront of studies on particular aspects such as: a study of entrepreneurship based on gender, based on great growth potential, depending on the origin of the entrepreneurs, employees’ entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship, entrepreneurship and family business, entrepreneurship from digital platforms or gig economies and, next 2020, the large-scale launch of the study of entrepreneurial ecosystems, a new dimension of the project focused on the local analysis of the quality of these types of networks in subnational zones

The Opinometre Institute is currently the Spanish company that has brought together more direct knowledge related to the collection and analysis of data in the field of entrepreneurship, being qualified as a company capable of offering various types of services related to this area such as, for example:

  • Estimation of the intra-entrepreneurial potential of medium-sized and large companies
  • Studies on the quality of entrepreneurial ecosystems
  • Business climate studies and monitoring of entrepreneurial activity.
  • Municipal office of the entrepreneur: municipal observatory.
  • Strategic plans to revitalize the economic activity in concrete sectors.
  • Conducting workshops on entrepreneurial skills and competences