Gender equality and industrial districts: funding opportunities for creative SMEs

This study explores the interplay between territorial embeddedness and gender dynamics in shaping access to public innovation funding among Italian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a particular focus on the cultural and creative sectors. The analysis is centered on the TOCC (Digital Transition of Cultural and Creative Organisations) programme, promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). The programme provides non-repayable grants to support the digital transformation of micro and small enterprises. Drawing on an original dataset of 887 firms, 345 of which successfully obtained funding, this research adopts an Exploratory Descriptive Qualitative (EDQ) approach to investigate how industrial district affiliation and the gender of executive leadership affect firms’ ability to access public support. The analysis integrates official TOCC rankings with firm-level data from the ORBIS database, allowing for a nuanced interpretation of structural, geographical, and gender-related patterns. The results highlight a marked territorial asymmetry: successful applicants are predominantly concentrated in central and northern regions, particularly within industrial districts, which appear to offer enabling conditions such as organizational infrastructures, collaborative networks, and project development capabilities. In contrast, southern regions remain underrepresented, indicating uneven institutional absorption capacity. The gender dimension reveals a persistent disparity: only 26% of applications were submitted by women-led firms, though their success rate is marginally higher (31%). This suggests that, despite the quality of proposals, structural and informational barriers continue to limit female entrepreneurs’ engagement with public funding opportunities. Furthermore, industrial districts do not appear to mitigate this gender gap. By examining the intersection of geography, gender, and access to innovation policy, the study contributes to the ongoing debate on inclusive economic development and offers valuable insights for the design of more equitable public policy instruments.