top of page

EUROPEAN EDTECH POLICY MAP

2.2. Skills and knowledge for building and running successful EdTech tools and services

2.2.3 Support female and gender-diverse founders

Summary of suggested actions
Raise the number and visibility of female and gender-diverse founders in the European EdTech sector through targeted funding mechanisms, leadership programmes, and research into structural barriers. This includes dedicated initiatives such as fellowships, accelerator schemes, and mentoring networks designed to improve access to capital, networks, and leadership opportunities.
Description
Women and gender-diverse entrepreneurs remain significantly underrepresented among founders and CEOs in the European EdTech ecosystem. A 2023 analysis of the European startup landscape shows that less than 15 % of venture-backed founders are women, and less than 3 % of total VC capital is allocated to female-founded companies (Atomico, 2023). Comparable patterns are evident in education technology, where male-dominated development teams often design products that inadequately reflect the diversity of learners and educators.
Structural and cultural barriers—such as unequal access to investment networks, limited representation in leadership roles, and gendered perceptions of technical competence—continue to limit women’s participation in EdTech innovation. These factors not only perpetuate inequality but also constrain creativity, reduce innovation quality, and reinforce systemic biases in product design.
Addressing these challenges requires a dual approach:
  1. Evidence and research, to understand the gender gap’s causes and impacts, and
  2. Direct intervention, through targeted support structures such as fellowships, accelerators, and mentorship programmes.
By supporting female and gender-diverse founders, Europe can strengthen its innovation base, promote inclusivity, and ensure that EdTech products are developed from more representative perspectives—better meeting the needs of all learners.
Major enabling factors

  • Existing EU gender equality frameworks such as the Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025 and Women in Digital (WiD) Scoreboard provide political momentum and data baselines.

  • Established European innovation instruments (e.g. EIT, Horizon Europe, Digital Europe) already include gender equality criteria that can be extended to the EdTech sector.

  • Growing ecosystem of support programmes, including EIT Girls Go Circular, Women TechEU, and InvestEU Gender Lens initiatives, which can be expanded to education-focused innovation.

  • Active industry networks, such as the European EdTech Alliance’s Female EdTech Fellowship, provide peer-to-peer support and mentorship at a regional level.

Major roadblocks
  • Female-led startups receive a disproportionately low share of venture and public innovation funding despite proof of their effectiveness being higher.
  • Many women lack access to the investor and mentor networks that facilitate growth and visibility.
  • Funding and procurement criteria often undervalue social impact or pedagogical relevance, areas where female founders are disproportionately active.
  • Gender inclusion policies in innovation and education remain fragmented, with insufficient coordination between ministries and EU programmes
Suggested action 1: Generate data on gender disparities
WHO (Potential actors)
European Commission, in partnership with national research agencies, gender equality bodies, and EdTech industry associations
 
WHAT (Goal of suggested activities)
Generate robust, comparable data and analysis on gender disparities and demonstrated needs in EdTech entrepreneurship and leadership, informing targeted policy and funding responses.
​
HOW (Suggested activities)
  • Commission cross-country research projects to examine the causes of women’s underrepresentation in EdTech entrepreneurship.
  • Investigate links between the gender composition of development teams and product design quality, user diversity, and classroom adoption.
  • Map investment flows by gender to identify structural funding gaps in public and private financing.
  • Publish findings through open-access reports and dashboards to guide inclusive policy design
Existing steps in the right direction
OECD Gender in Education and Innovation Initiative

The OECD’s Gender Initiative addresses gender equality across policy domains, including education, research, innovation and entrepreneurship, by mapping gaps, defining indicators and recommending policy responses. Its work on education explores gender gaps in attainment, participation in STEM fields, lifelong learning and employment outcomes. 
For example, the OECD publication Gender, Education and Skills provides a detailed analysis of how gender shapes educational attainment, field of study choice, and adult skills across life-courses.
The OECD Dashboard on Gender Gaps offers comparable cross-country data on “Education & Skills” and “Entrepreneurship” among its categories.

​

Specific support required to achieve the Goal: 

  • Integrate EdTech entrepreneurship and innovation indicators (for example, number of female-founded EdTech companies, gender composition of EdTech leadership, and gender-disaggregated investment flows in EdTech) into OECD and EU gender monitoring frameworks (such as the Women in Digital Scoreboard and Digital Education Action Plan (2021‑2027) indicators).

  • Develop a joint OECD-EU working group on Gender & EdTech Innovation to adapt existing gender-equality data tools and define EdTech-specific metrics, classification and data-collection methods.

  • Provide a public-access dashboard or report module within the OECD’s gender portal focused on gender in EdTech innovation, enabling benchmarking across Member States and tracking of policy impact

European EdTech Map – Gender Insights and Reporting

The European EdTech Map, developed by the European EdTech Alliance (EEA), is Europe’s most comprehensive, continuously updated database of EdTech organisations. It collects self-reported data from companies across Member States and EEA partners on size, stage, product focus, market scope, and founding teams. Since its 2023 update, the platform has also included gender-disaggregated indicators, capturing information on the gender composition of founders and executive teams, and the funding relevant to the gender make up both founding teams and managing teams. 
These data feed into the reports on the State of play of EdTech and the European EdTech Ecosystem in Europe (Havinga & Clary, 2024; EmpowerED project, 2024; EmpowerED project, 2025/ unpublished report), which analyse representation trends, leadership gaps, and regional differences in gender balance across the sector. The reports highlight that women remain markedly underrepresented among founders and CEOs, with most EdTech leadership teams across Europe still predominantly male. At the same time, ecosystems that host targeted support structures, such as mentorship networks, gender-inclusive accelerators, or female-focused fellowships, show a higher rate of women’s participation in founding teams.
The European EdTech Map contributes directly to closing the evidence gap identified by EU and OECD policy frameworks. It provides a unique empirical basis for monitoring progress over time and supports the design of targeted interventions to improve gender diversity in digital-education entrepreneurship. This evidence base supports policymakers, investors, and accelerators in designing gender-responsive funding mechanisms, fellowship programmes, and mentorship initiatives.

​

Specific support required to achieve the Goal: 

  • The methodology could also inform similar mapping efforts in other education-innovation fields or serve as a model for international replication under UNESCO or OECD monitoring frameworks.

  • Ensure long-term institutional funding for the European EdTech Map to sustain and expand gender-disaggregated data collection and reporting.

  • Integrate gender and diversity indicators into all European EdTech Map updates, with cross-country comparability aligned to EU gender-equality metrics (e.g. WiD Scoreboard and DEAP indicators).

  • Establish formal data-sharing partnerships with the European Commission, OECD, and national research agencies to include Map insights in official gender-equality reporting.

  • Encourage participation from female-founded companies and underrepresented regions by providing visibility incentives and dedicated outreach through national EdTech associations.

Suggested action 2: Expand direct support for female and gender-diverse founders
WHO (Potential actors)
European Commission (DG EAC, DG Connect, DG RTD), EIT Digital, national innovation agencies, and gender equality networks in collaboration with local EdTech associations
 
WHAT (Goal of suggested activities)
Extend and amplify initiatives that directly support women and gender-diverse founders—such as fellowships, accelerators, and mentorship networks—tailored to the specific dynamics of the EdTech sector.
​
HOW (Suggested activities)
  • Establish dedicated EdTech gender innovation funds under Digital Europe or EIC Accelerator to support female-led projects.
  • Co-fund leadership fellowships and mentorship schemes, building on successful models such as the EEA’s Female EdTech Fellowship.
  • Integrate EdTech entrepreneurship content into EU-wide initiatives like the Women and Girls in STEM Forum and Girls Go Circular.
  • Support capacity-building partnerships between EdTech associations, accelerators, and universities to deliver outreach, training, and coaching.
  • Encourage venture and public funding programmes to adopt gender-lens investment criteria that evaluate both representation and social impact.
Existing steps in the right direction
EIT Girls Go Circular, Girls Go STEM and Women and Girls in STEM Forum

Girls Go Circular and STEM, and Women and Girls in STEM are EU-level initiatives promoting girls’ and women’s participation in STEM and digital fields through training, mentorship, and networking. They provide a ready-made framework for expanding activities to include EdTech entrepreneurship and leadership training. Currently there is no continuation of these programmes that would take participants from their initial journey through to the workforce or STEM study programmes.

​

Specific support required to achieve the Goal: 

  • Add a “Digital Learning and EdTech” thematic strand to both programmes, integrating collaboration with national EdTech associations and SMEs.

  • Ensure there is continuity for participants by working with local and European initiatives that can provide dedicated support for women entrepreneurs and STEM in the workforce. 

European EdTech Alliance – Female EdTech Fellowship

The Fellowship, about to launch its 8th cohort, supports early-stage and growth-stage female founders in EdTech through peer mentoring, expert sessions, and visibility campaigns. It has already connected more than 100 founders across Europe. The programme demonstrates the tangible impact of targeted peer-support structures in addressing isolation and knowledge gaps among women entrepreneurs. 

​

Specific support required to achieve the Goal: 

Establish long-term co-funding through Erasmus+ or Digital Europe to scale the model to additional Member States and extend alumni networks, and to keep participation cost at a minimum and support more women and girls to go through the programme.

bottom of page