Ms Julie Sinnamon:

Success for us would be not having any female competitive start funds but we appreciate that there is a little bit more time to go before we get to that magical 50% level. It certainly is something that has been very successful in bringing applications forward.

A number of other issues arise. On the venture capital fund and female-only funds, anything we do in venture funds is through our competitive call. We have done a number of things to bring female entrepreneurs to other funds and to get them to pitch in the United Kingdom. Some of them have successfully pitched to female only funds. They have not taken the money but gone back to general funds where they get better terms. We will constantly examine the situation but, to date, there has not been a sufficient critical mass to have a competitive commercial female fund, which is what we would need. That is the reason the competitive start funds are important, as are the initiatives to network females into sources of funding. Over the coming weeks we will be coming forward with all the responses item by item but a number of issues arise, and it continues to be a subject close to our hearts, not just in terms of the numbers of female entrepreneurs but particularly growing them to scale. The Cartier awards were held last week. Last year we had a female overall winner and this year we have a female European winner. It is very welcome to see not just the number of females involved but the quality of female entrepreneurs on a world stage. That is another bit of good news.

We have 15 technology centres, which are based in most of our universities. We can send the committee a list of all of them.