A true testament to UCL School of Management’s commitment to mental health research and education, lecturer Christina Richardson takes the lead in shedding light on a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of entrepreneurship – founder mental wellbeing support.
Having published an impactful Founder Pressure and Wellbeing report in 2019, Christina Richardson is once again at the forefront of groundbreaking endeavours that aim to support the humans behind the startups in the UK and beyond. Imperial College London recognised the significance of the original report prompting a collaboration to successfully submit an Enterprise Educators (EEUK) bid for a grant, which was successful and even came first place.
UCL School of Management, weare3Sixty and Imperial College London will be leading research into the support and wellbeing needs of founders through the initial start-up journey, in order to inform educators what is needed in this space. They have also secured speaking slots to facilitate the discussion and data collection at EEUK’s annual conference IEEC in September, and at the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centres (GCEC) conference in Dallas in October.
The collaboration is set to produce actionable recommendations and a practical toolkit. These resources are intended to equip Entrepreneurship Centres with the tools needed to support founders’ wellbeing and resilience right from the outset of their entrepreneurial pursuits - leading to fewer startup failures from leadership challenges and burnout. They will be leading workshops at a UK level and a global level on the topic too - Founders Not Superheroes: The Case For Integrating Mental Wellbeing Support Into Entrepreneurship Education.
The team’s impactful message will also be shared on the international stage, with plans to present their findings and recommendations at both IEEC and GCEC conferences in 2024.
“We have been leading the way in addressing the human impact and support needs of early-stage founders. In recent years, School of Management workshop programmes have aimed to address this crucial gap in entrepreneurship education and this year, we introduced the Building High Impact Founders module, as a reflection of the importance to develop the soft-skills and resilience of those embarking on the entrepreneurial path. This latest research will further inform this work and facilitate its impact across all entrepreneurship streams across the school.”
Christina Richardson, Lecturer at the School of Management and founder at weare3Sixty.
