Dr Carolyn McMillan

Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow

Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation

Personal statement

Carolyn is a Lecturer and Chancellor's Fellow at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, Strathclyde Business School. Her research explores how and whether (social) entrepreneurship and (social) innovation may contribute to challenges in contexts. She is also interested in participatory and community-led approaches with an emphasis on marginalised and disadvantaged groups.

Carolyn enjoys working collaboratively and has developed networks nationally and internationally (particularly in South and South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa).

Carolyn has been awarded £1.6m in funding (as Co-I and PI ). As PI, her research has focused on youth, women, (social) entrepreneurship, active citizenship and social impact, with an emphasis on South Africa, Ghana, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Funding: British Council, European Commission, and GCRF.

At Strathclyde Business School, I teach International Entrepreneurship (where students develop international market entry plans for local and national businesses) and Lead the Internship Pathway of MDP.

Publications

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Publications

The health and wellbeing outcomes of employment and vocational-based interventions for veterans : a scoping review: Hutcheon Danielle, Rendall Jack, McMillan Carolyn, Dall Philippa, Morrison-Glancy Shirley, Steiner Artur; Journal of Veteran Studies Vol 11, pp. 95-111 (2025); https://doi.org/10.21061/jvs.v11i1.638
The role of cross-sector social partnerships in enabling social value creation and social entrepreneurial learning and practice by South African youth: McMillan Carolyn, van Rooyen Deidre; Developing University Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa (2024) (2024); https://doi.org/10.1142/14032
Beyond teaching : the extended role of informal entrepreneurship education and training in challenging contexts: Akullo Grace, Fernandez Elisa Maria Aracil, Mwaura Samuel, McMillan Carolyn; International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research (2024); https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-09-2023-0917
Investigating the contribution of community empowerment policies to successful co-production- evidence from Scotland: Steiner Artur, McMillan Carolyn, Hill OConnor Clementine; Public Management Review Vol 25, pp. 1587-1609 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2022.2033053
Social Enterprise in Mexico : Higher Education and Beyond: Hazenberg Richard, Paterson-Young Claire, Karlidag-Dennis Ecem, Majewsky Anderson Mark, McMillan Carolyn; (2021)
Asset Transfer Requests : Evaluation of Part 5 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015: McMillan Carolyn, Steiner Artur, Hill OConnor Clementine; Social Research Series Social Research Series (2020)

More publications

Research

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Professional Activities

Tribhuvan University: Visiting researcher; 11/9/2024
16th International Social Innovation Research Conference: Participant; 9/2024
Minoritised Enterprise Policy and Action Lab Scotland (External organisation): Member; 29/5/2024
Grant Writing Challenge: Participant; 2024
RISIS International Conference: Participant; 11/2023
Tackling Global challenges: productivity labs (set of workshops for collaborative grant development for researchers): Participant; 1/4/2023

More professional activities

Projects

Making motherhood work: Supporting mothers in academia: McMillan, Carolyn (Principal Investigator) Arshed, Norin (Co-investigator) Wilson, Juliette (Co-investigator); There is no shortage of literature surrounding academic mothers and the stark differences between men and women in academia in terms of promotion rates, salary, and workload, amongst other factors . Research highlights that there has only been a marginal improvement for academic mothers in recent decades . This is not only detrimental at an individual level, but also represents lost potential economic and social value at an institutional level. As key stakeholders, mothers need a voice and a role in shaping policy and practice within academia.

In response to calls encouraging universities to better support mother academics, the Making Motherhood Work project aims to support the professional development of academic mothers at the University of Strathclyde by exploring the challenges and barriers they face when juggling their caring responsibilities and developing their careers within the institution.

Funded by the University of Strathclyde's Institutional Funding for Research Culture Award, Cultures of Collaborative Research (Wellcome Trust).; 01-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2025
Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences- University of Strathclyde Entrepreneurship Development: McMillan, Carolyn (Principal Investigator); The proposed project, MUSED, is designed to build a partnership between the Entrepreneurship Centre at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) and the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship (HCE), SBS, to explore and develop opportunities for future collaboration. Specifically, the project has three stages – Define, Engage, Develop – and focused on three key areas – Education, Research and Practice. Through early engagement to define needs, priorities and interests (for both partners), a collaboration plan will be developed to define and support future activities and enable the development of funding proposals. The enclosed proposed project would also support in person engagement during the University’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, to further evidence Strathclyde’s commitment to Malawi and our international partnerships.; 01-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2025
Cultures of Collaborative Research in a Socially Progressive Technological University / R230557-210: McMillan, Carolyn (Co-investigator); 16-Jan-2024 - 15-Jan-2025
Microentrepreneurship Intermediaries: enabling agency and challenging structure for Sustainable Change (MISC): McMillan, Carolyn (Principal Investigator); Entrepreneurship has emerged as an endogenous tool for social & economic value generation with women entrepreneurs commonly identified as agents of change: instrumental in undertaking action in pursuit of positive outcomes. Yet, for many groups – including marginalised & disadvantaged women – the rules of the (entrepreneurial/societal) game define & sustain their oppression relative to other groups1 & drive inequality of entrepreneurial opportunity2. As a result, across disparate contexts, intermediaries commonly exist to enable entrepreneurship for such communities. Of these, some specifically work to address the constraining effects of structure and enable agency. The project explores the enacted role of intermediaries to understand the outcome of interventions at individual (micro) - intergenerational and community/structural levels (meso/ macro). Urban Kathmandu has been selected as the context for the research due to the complex nature of – and incongruence between – (in)formal structures that define women’s roles. Employing an inductive qualitative approach (individual interviews with policymakers (~n=2), intermediaries (~n=6) and entrepreneurs (~n=12)), the project will enable an understanding of ‘good practice’ in intermediary programme/ process design to challenge structure and enable agency; make contributions to national narratives on inclusive development; support the development of future funding bids; and expand the Nepal Social Impact Research Group.; 29-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2025