Barriers to Entrepreneurship for Women Neuroscientists

This poster describes a project to support women life scientists’ in pursuing entrepreneurship. Drs. Tanner and Metcalf developed and assessed an interactive simulation that identifies key strategies to break down barriers and enhance entrepreneurial intent and efficacy. Women scientists responding to needs analysis surveys indicated an interest in fictional narratives highlighting women’s successes in life science firms and entrepreneurship and the benefits of mentorship. To enhance barrier-breaking skills development, the women surveyed wanted an interactive branching path narrative with decision points and customized immediate feedback. Finally, they wanted to assess their readiness for business in terms of their intent and self-efficacy in the form of “Are you ready?” interactive quizzes. Needs and interest survey results guided the development of interactive dialog elements including branching path experience and self-query tools. Current work is testing the impact of online simulation and learning game linear narratives on established scales of entrepreneurial intent and self-efficacy, customized for an audience of life scientists and its unique challenges.

Suggested Citation: Tanner B, Metcalf M Barriers to Entrepreneurship for Women Neuroscientists. Poster presented at the 2023 Winter Conference on Brain Research Meeting, January 23, 2023, Snowbird, UT.

Acknowledgments & Disclosure: Funding for this project is provided by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (Grants #1 R43 GM131458-01 & #2 R43GM131458-02). Clinical Tools, Inc. IRB reviewed and approved the research. Clinical Tools, Inc is 100% owned by Bradley Tanner, MD and he serves as President of Clinical Tools, Inc.

More info on the authors: Brad Tanner, Mary P Metcalf