It’s been a while since we updated the NEA news page. That certainly doesn’t mean it’s been quiet.

So far, 2026 has seen us supporting neurodivergent founders, developing new research and partnerships, working with universities and public bodies, and preparing for our biggest event of the year: NEA26.

Here are a few highlights.

Learning from ThriveND

Our ThriveND programme, supported by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, has been running across West Yorkshire and beyond since autumn 2025.

The programme has combined workshops, peer support through our NeuroSpark community, and one-to-one coaching for neurodivergent founders and aspiring entrepreneurs.

As well as supporting individual participants, ThriveND has given us valuable insight into the realities of neurodivergent self-employment: why people choose entrepreneurship, the barriers they encounter, and why conventional business support doesn’t always work for neurodivergent people.

One message has come through particularly strongly: good business support isn’t simply about providing more information. People also need support that recognises different ways of thinking, working, communicating and turning ideas into action.

We’re now exploring how those lessons can inform future programmes both within West Yorkshire and further afield.

Building more neuroinclusive business support

A growing part of NEA’s work is helping organisations make their own entrepreneurship and business support more neuroinclusive.

That includes universities, enterprise programmes, public bodies and other organisations working with founders.

Rather than creating completely separate provision for neurodivergent entrepreneurs, we want to help organisations understand where apparently small features of mainstream programmes can unintentionally create barriers – and what can be changed.

This work is informing the continued development of the NEA’s neuroinclusive training and accreditation offer, which provides organisations with practical recommendations and support to improve their programmes.

Taking the conversation internationally

The conversation around neurodiversity and entrepreneurship is increasingly international.

During 2026 we’ve been developing relationships with researchers, universities and entrepreneurship organisations in the UK and overseas, with conversations ranging from neuroinclusive enterprise education to support for neurodivergent founders and young people considering self-employment.

We’re particularly interested in collaborations that combine research, lived experience and practical delivery – helping us understand neurodivergent entrepreneurship better while also changing the support available to founders.

Researching neurodivergent entrepreneurship

Research remains an important part of NEA’s work.

We’re continuing to contribute to a growing international conversation about neurodivergent entrepreneurship: not simply looking at the challenges neurodivergent founders experience, but understanding the complexity of entrepreneurship as a career and life choice.

That includes questions around autonomy, identity, relationships, cognitive intensity and the ways characteristics commonly described as either entrepreneurial ‘strengths’ or ‘weaknesses’ can operate very differently depending on the person and their environment.

We’re also particularly interested in what happens earlier: how neurodivergent young people encounter entrepreneurship and whether self-employment is presented as a realistic and supported future option. More on this to come!

NeuroSpark continues

Our NeuroSpark sessions continue to bring neurodivergent founders together for honest conversations about the things that can make running a business particularly difficult.

Recent discussions and sessions have explored subjects including overwhelm, perfectionism, workload and organisation, funding and building effective support around yourself.

One of the things we continue to hear is how valuable it can be simply to spend time with other founders who understand the experience.

We’ll be developing NeuroSpark further as part of the next phase of the NEA community. Registration for our September sessions is now open!

And next: NEA26

A major focus for the rest of the year is NEA26, our annual Neurodiversity & Entrepreneurship Conference, taking place in Leeds on 19–20 November 2026.

Following NEA25 at Durham University Business School, this year’s conference will once again bring together neurodivergent founders, researchers, enterprise educators, business support professionals and organisations interested in making entrepreneurship more inclusive.

NEA26 will combine academic research with practical founder workshops and lived experience – because we think some of the most interesting things happen when those conversations take place together.

We’ll be sharing much more about the programme, speakers and themes over the coming weeks. If your organisation would be interested in sponsoring this year’s conference, please do get in touch.

More to come

There is a lot happening around neurodivergent entrepreneurship at the moment.

Three years after NEA was established, we’re increasingly seeing conversations that once felt quite niche becoming part of wider discussions about entrepreneurship, employment, inclusion and economic opportunity.

There is still a huge amount to do.

But we’re excited about where those conversations are heading – and about the role that the NEA can play in helping turn them into practical change.

And we’ll try not to leave it quite so long before the next news update 🙄😊