Back in 2017 we were commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to review what universities were doing to better support social innovation, enterprise and leadership, consider the impact of some of the programmes working with these groups and look at recommendations for what a range of stakeholder groups could do next to harness potential.
t is great to see that the momentum is still building across the Higher Education sector to support social innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Over 100 universities across the UK have engaged in running programmes to support social entrepreneurship and innovation in recent years and many universities have achieved Social Enterprise Mark status.
We were commissioned a few years ago to look at this theme in some depth and a range of interesting findings came through.
The aim of this research was originally to help inform the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s (HEFCE) thinking, on the extent to which their investments, through the UnLtd / HEFCE programmes (2009 – 2015) had an impact and left a legacy. In excess of £5mill from HEFCE and £3mill matched the 86 universities involved, developed a collaborative partnership programme to capacity build the Higher Education (HE) sector to be able to find, fund and support social entrepreneurs as well as build ecosystems where social entrepreneurs could thrive. However, the findings of this report, including good practice examples and recommendations, are likely to be of interest to a broad range of stakeholders who have been part of this work and built momentum as part of this agenda for nearly a decade.
The review and report was carried out two years beyond the end of the core funded programmes of activity, and is still is relevant both in seeking to understand the impact of what has been achieved within this programme and beyond.
This report sought to answer the question ‘To what extent has the Higher Education (HE) sector the capacity to support social innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership?’
Capacity was considered in the terms listed below, in order to understand where universities are best placed to operate and add value in support of social entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders alongside the wider Social Enterprise (SE) and Innovation support sectors:
- Assets and resources
- Knowledge and skills
- Range of support on offer and how this is received by beneficiaries and stakeholders within and beyond HEIs
- Future needs, opportunities and routes to sustaining momentum and support beyond the lifetime of the initial pump priming phase
Given the broad range of partners and stakeholders involved in building the credibility, resources and impact to date, research methods were designed to engage and seek input from across HEI communities as supporters, social entrepreneurs as beneficiaries and members of the wider SE support infrastructure as partners.
Methods included ; desk based research, surveys from across 24 universities, one to one interviews and focus groups were carried out between May and September 2017 involving feedback from over 70 research participants.
The overall headline findings
Overall headlines found that the majority of the 24 universities who engaged in the survey have built significant capacity and are well placed to offer support currently and into the future:
1: HEIs OFFER A WIDE RANGE OF SUPPORT, COMPARABLE WITH THE WIDER SE SUPPORT SECTOR AND SIGNIFICANT PROPORTIONS OF THEIR OFFER ARE SECURE IN THE SHORT TERM
2: HEIs ARE GETTING IT RIGHT MOST OF THE TIME, FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF THEIR UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY & MARKETPLACE
3: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS STARTING OUT AT UNIVERSITIES ARE ACCESSING A BROAD RANGE OF FOLLOW ON SUPPORT BEYOND INITIAL INTERVENTIONS PROVIDED BY HEIs
4: SIGNIFICANT FINANCIAL AND NON FINANCIAL SUPPORT IS BEING COMMITTED BY SOME HEIs TO SUPPORT SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP INNOVATION & LEADERSHIP ACTIVITIES
5: OVER 738 SOCIAL VENTURES HAVE BEEN INCORPORATED ACROSS THE 24 HEIs SURVEYED IN THE LAST 5 YEARS
6: THE UnLtd SEE CHANGE PROGRAMME COMING TO AN END HAS HAD A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON CAPACITY – BOTH ON THE ABILITY TO SUPPORT SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS AS WELL AS INVEST IN THEM
7: WIDER STAKEHOLDERS VALUE WORKING WITH HEIs AND THE CONTRIBUTION THEY ARE MAKING TO SUPPORT
THE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AGENDA
However we found that beyond a core group of committed HEIs, support opportunities vary greatly across the country and ease of engagement and access highly depend on whether you are already a member of a particular university or not. The end of the initial pump priming phase to capacity build institutions, negatively impacted 95% of those supported, reducing their capacity to both invest in and support social entrepreneurs at the level they did previously. In spite of inconsistent access to resources and strategic buy in, this research uncovered 19 universities who have collectively invested £3.4 million in social enterprise support activities in 2016-2017 (£2.3m non-financial support £1.2 million direct cash awards). This is a significant legacy when you consider that the main UnLtd/HEFCE capacity building programme, the HE Support Programme launched in 2009, invested £2 million across 56 HEIs.
Areas where HEIs are well placed to support SEs :
Outreach capabilities to build pipeline, Ideation & Start-up stage support, staff with specialist SE knowledge, collaboration/partnership expertise, commitment and ongoing resources
Areas needing further development:
Supporting SEs scaling beyond universities, funding & investment strategies/tools to sustain activities, access to specialist mentors & consultants, Social Value measurement support, support to gain strategic buy in, communication support to raise awareness and profile
Additionally 4 areas of opportunity have evolved over the last decade where HEIs are well placed to have impact
- Procurement potential is a huge strength given the annual spend budget, buying in external products and services across the HE sector is £7 billion. However, this is a relatively untapped opportunity and needs further strategic support and attention to unlock the social and economic impact this could leverage
- Curriculum has evolved to incorporate social entrepreneurship aspects, including case studies, enhancing experiential learning and to enable enterprise principles to become accessible across a broader range of facilities
- Local to Global Opportunities have mushroomed over the last 5 years with HEIs in UK being seen as global leaders in SE. Many have been called to speak at conference and support colleagues around the globe in both developed and developing countries
- Social Innovation has evolved and aligns well with social entrepreneurship and leadership as terms individuals use to describe what they do. Not all those across staff, students and graduate communities identify with ‘Enterprise’ as a goal, therefore Social Innovation bridges a gap and creates new opportunities to enable academics, non- academics, students and wider stake holders to develop and implement research for social and economic gain.
Below are the priority recommendations we made at the time to respond to areas needing development, as well as current areas of opportunity. There are areas where attention and investment would have the greatest traction, as there is already momentum and support from HEI peers, Social Entrepreneurs and wider stakeholders to align energy and resources.
Recommendation 1: Improve strategic buy in …..
Action 1: HEIs, Social Entrepreneurs and Wider Stakeholders need to encourage further support to gain buy in from Vice Chancellors and senior managers within HEIs to support this agenda
Action 2: Support from Universities UK, SEUK, SE Mark and other strategic networks to assist this
Recommendation 2: Maximise assets and create investment to continue to build capacity of staff / curriculum champions….
Action 3: Continued development of a National HE peer network to develop internal infrastructure to better support social entrepreneurs and align efforts and resources, as well as measure impact, value and communicate as a single voice
Action 4: Develop a series of conferences, a ‘Socially Entrepreneurial Academic’ leadership programme or toolkit of evolving good practice
Action 5: Create a directory of Social Enterprise Support Specialists with expertise of working with HEIs to assist SEs to scale
Action 6: Curriculum enhancement via tools and training, benefiting staff and students from being exposed to SE activities
Recommendation 3: Enable social entrepreneurs to connect with internal & external opportunities….
Action 7: Development of a National Network of Social Entrepreneurs who were initially supported at a University
Action 8: Highlight and leverage the ‘Local to global’ opportunities connecting and harnessing international networks
Recommendation 4: Enable trade and unlock procurement potential…..
Action 9: Procurement advancement of SE products and services in Higher Education, via awareness and improved processes
Recommendation 5: Investment to collaborate on social innovation, social research and social enterprise ….
Action 10: Create a dedicated Social Research, Social Innovation & Social Enterprise partnership, led by HEI peers across enterprise, incubation, innovation and research roles to innovate knowledge transfer and sustainable applications of research
Maintained focus, attention, partnership working and resources will make a lasting difference in building momentum, creating consistent capacity for support and innovation to enable further impact. Not only did HEFCE’s investment acted as a major catalyst to progress this agenda, it has been financially matched by over 90 universities and crucially been taken to the hearts of hundreds of capable colleagues and social entrepreneurs across the Higher Education sector who are committed to ensuring support for social innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders is a priority.
If you would like do discuss further findings from this report or would like to discuss support, partnership or consultancy needs please email nickala@flourishtogether.org.uk who led on this work.
