Frequently asked questions 

The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School is a leading academic entity for the advancement of social entrepreneurship worldwide.  The Skoll Centre fosters innovative social transformation through world-class education, cutting-edge research, and collaboration among business, policy, academic, and social leaders.  It was founded in 2003 with a £4.4 million investment by the Skoll Foundation, the largest funding ever received by a business school for an international programme in social entrepreneurship.

We are formally and legally part of the University of Oxford. We are one of several research centres of the Said Business School, and located within its physical building in Oxford.

The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship is not the Skoll Foundation.  The Skoll Foundation is a strong partner, advisor, and founding investor of the Skoll Centre, but we are two separate entities.

No, the Skoll Centre is not a grant-making foundation and does not invest financially in social enterprises.  We provide funding for 5 MBA students per year in social entrepreneurship (Read more about Skollars), but we do not provide any other grant funding for individuals or their projects.

The Skoll Centre is uniquely situated between two key partners- Oxford University and the Skoll Foundation. We leverage value from each, and bridge the gap between the academic and practioner worlds. Our research and community are global in scope, and we uniquely use the power of networks to magnify the work of our researchers, students, and wider community beyond local and national boundaries.

 

We also provide the only fully funded MBA scholarship with living costs; we teach the only class dedicated to social finance; we host the only endowed lectureship on social entrepreneurship at a business school;  and we organize the Skoll World Forum, in close partnership with the Skoll Foundation, the largest gathering of social entrepreneurs annually.

 

Skollars are recipients of a fully funded MBA scholarships.  There are 5 each year. To date, 30 Skollars have been supported since the Skoll Centre’s inception.  They are awarded the scholarship for their previous track record of and future commitment to social innovation.   Fellows of the Skoll Centre are researchers and practitioners who are affiliated with the Centre.  They publish, collaborate, and teach various topics on social entrepreneurship.

 

You do not need to apply to be affiliated with the Skoll Centre.  As an admitted Said student, you have access to the courses and resources offered by the Skoll Centre, and are automatically “a part” of our community should you choose to engage with us.

We see all our investors as critical partners in advancing the field of social entrepreneurship.  If you would like to speak about potential partnership and investment opportunities, please contact us.

The Skoll World Forum is by invitation only. For more information, please go to

Social entrepreneurship is an approach to creating social and environmental change  - it is systemic, high-impact, and efficient. Social entrepreneurship it is about seizing opportunities to innovate and create large-scale, sustainable  transformation. Socially entrepreneurial activity happens across fields - from health to climate change to education - and across sectors - from the non profit to commercial to public.  

No, the organisations social entrepreneurs create are called social enterprises or social ventures.  However, not all social enterprises are created by social entrepreneurs who seek transformational social change.  Some social enterprises are created by governments or non-profit organisations to generate employment opportunities or address other social issues.  These usually include an income-generating strategy, hence the term “social enterprise.” But they are not particularly innovative nor transformational.

We believe that you cannot teach someone to be an entrepreneur.  But we do know that entrepreneurship is contagious, and by working alongside entrepreneurs one can learn to think in a more entrepreneurial fashion. By doing so, countless students, who didn’t think they were entrepreneurial, have discovered their entrepreneurial streak and true passion for social change. We aim to equip students with the tools - both academic and practical - needed to strengthen their capacity to create this change.

No, social entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship, focused on creating value for society rather than accumulating value for shareholders. Social entrepreneurs are just like entrepreneurs in the traditional business sector – driven, efficient, and market-oriented. While charities serve a meaningful purpose in our society, most charitable ventures are palliative, assuaging social problems rather than designing systems-changing initiatives that seek to address the roots of the social problem.

There are 3 clear reasons. One, universities are the breeding grounds for future leaders, and for social entrepreneurship to have scalability and sustainability, we need to educate young people to led the field. Two, researchers have a birds-eye view on the top trends and patterns emerging global; they can synthesis and disseminate learning for practioners, policy makers, and other social innovators. Three, by establishing social entrepreneurship as a field of scholarship, it provides legitimacy and credibility to the field as both an academic and practical discipline.