On 12 May 2002, the Foundation signed a Collaboration Agreement with the University of Alcalá to carry out research, the final result of which, based on the "Report on entrepreneurial activity, 2001. Companies and entrepreneurs in Spain: causes, activities, threats and opportunities", has been the book "Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit in Spain at the dawn of the 21st century", whose authors are Antonio García Tabuenca, Justo de Jorge Moreno and Federico Pablo Martí. The book has been published by the Foundation in its Economy and Business Collection. The book was presented on 23 November 2004 at the University of Alcalá and on 16 December 2004 at the headquarters of the Rafael del Pino Foundation with the intervention of the Secretary General for Industry, Joan Trullén Thomàs.
The aim of this paper has been to offer a descriptive and analytical overview of the entrepreneurial dynamics in Spain in order to understand the reasons that move, slow down, paralyse or lead to failure or success for those who try the entrepreneurial adventure, assuming their own personal and financial risk. In general, in economic analysis, entrepreneurial activity has been dealt with mainly from the perspective of the company. Due to the interest in recent years in the figure of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial spirit, this work is oriented more from the point of view of the entrepreneur than that of the company.
Given the interest of the research and the data and information provided by it, the Foundation considered it appropriate to continue with the project. Consequently, on 16 November 2005, the Director of the Foundation and the Rector of the University of Alcalá de Henares signed the appropriate Collaboration Agreement. The objective of the proposed research is to offer a descriptive and analytical overview of the entrepreneurial and business dynamics in Spain as a means of understanding the reasons that move, slow down, paralyse or lead to success or failure of those who carry out entrepreneurial activity. The final report includes a descriptive and comparative analysis of the surveys corresponding to 2002 and 2005, as well as an analysis of entrepreneurial behaviour based on the information contained in the SABI database, the same database used in the previous research.
On 12 November 2008, the President of the Rafael del Pino Foundation and the Rector of the University of Alcalá, as President of the General Foundation of the University, signed a collaboration agreement with the aim of producing the Third Report of the Rafael del Pino Foundation on entrepreneurial activity with the title: "Companies and entrepreneurs in Spain, 2008. Women in entrepreneurial activity". The research offers a descriptive and analytical overview of the entrepreneurial and business dynamics in Spain, with special mention of the role of women in this field. Following the methodology of the previous reports, the third report included a survey that gathered the opinion of a representative sample of entrepreneurs, and delved into questions related to the factors that affect the success and failure of business projects, competitive creativity and early activity. The final research included a descriptive and comparative analysis of the surveys carried out in 2002, 2005 and 2008.
The content of this research materialised in the book "Emprendedores y espíritu empresarial de España" (Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in Spain) published in 2004.
