Written by Daniel Jarosch

Drs. Saskia de Klerk, Nelia Hyndman-Rizk and Marina Zhang would like to invite you to participate in this research on the journey of moving to another country and starting a business in this new environment.

This project is titled Immigrant entrepreneurship: Necessity or opportunity and it is supported by the University of New South Wales.

It is interesting to know that several studies have shown that immigrants exhibit a higher entrepreneurship rate than their indigenous counterparts. Traditionally immigrants were attracted to Sydney and Melbourne where employment opportunities are relatively easier to locate than in smaller cities or regional areas.

The recent immigration policy has attempted to attract more immigrants to smaller cities or regional Australia. This is one of the policies that aim to build a sustainable regional economy in Australia.

However, our understanding of the effectiveness of government efforts in attracting immigrants in those areas and supporting their business operations is limited.

This project aims at understanding the motivation to start a business and what they need on different levels.

How these entrepreneurs experience the economic and business climate will help us to determine the best avenues and programmes to offer support and to make recommendations to government on where and how to offer these services.

We are inviting 1st and 2nd generation entrepreneurs from across Australia, from any background and working in all industries to share your experience and journey with us.

If you would like to be involved there are a variety of ways in which you can share your valuable insights:

· We would like to listen to your story and arrange an interview with you.

· Or you might want to share your thoughts with us by participating in the online survey. This survey can be accessed through this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GLWDKRK

· Or you might want to share your story in an email or via a telephone conversation.

After completion of the report we would like to share it with you.

This research project is funded by a Collaborative Research Grant (UNSW Canberra) and we have Ethics clearance Reference number A-14-17 issued by the Human Research Ethics Advisory Panel of the UNSW.

Contact us at: s.deklerk@adfa.edu.au OR n.hyndman-rizk@adfa.edu.au OR m.zhang@adfa.edu.au 

We hope that you will be as enthusiastic as we are about those untold stories and the wealth of experience that each of you can share with others.