The policy emphasis in the UK in recent years continues to be on fast-growth, high-growth and scaling as the watch-words of business support policy. Yet these ‘high-growth’ firms represent a tiny proportion of the total number of people who successfully set up businesses or are self-employed or who expand existing businesses. It is this mass of “everyday entrepreneurs” who generate the employment, the productivity, the innovation and the economic growth and regeneration of their communities, their regions and their countries. Any commitment by governments to supporting this group of people simply reflects the vital role that these people play in the competitive future of any country. • This is exactly the constituency that Andy Burnham’s own framing of “good growth in every postcode” implicitly recognises. If growth is to be felt in every community, and not just concentrated in a small number of high-growth outliers, then policy attention must extend beyond the scale-up cohort to the much larger population of everyday entrepreneurs whose collective activity underpins local economies across the country. • This is precisely where GEM UK earns its place in the policy landscape. By tracking the full population of nascent, new and established entrepreneurs – not just the small cohort destined for hyper-growth – GEM UK provides the evidence base that policymakers need to design support around the realities of everyday entrepreneurship, rather than a narrow and unrepresentative “unicorn” narrative. It is this granular, population-level intelligence that allows government to see who is starting businesses, why, and what holds them back, and to calibrate policy accordingly.