Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship

We work with faculty and early career researchers at Oxford Saïd and beyond to enable high-quality research that generates insights to address pressing environmental and social challenges globally. Our aim is to connect researchers with social impact practitioners, catalyse new research ideas, and communicate research findings to generate real impact.

Some of the activities to achieve this are:

• Early Career Research Fellowship – a recognition and support for early career academics
• Research Accelerator Grants – funding for ‘first steps’ or ‘last mile’ research projects focused on addressing wicked problems

Oxford Impact Finance Initiative

An area that the Skoll Centre focuses its insights on is the growing field of impact finance, led by Professor of Social Entrepreneurship, Alex Nicholls.

Systems Change Observatory

A research initiative that focuses on the long-term empirical study of systems change efforts in the social impact space, including pathways, challenges and solutions.

Every year we organise a range of events seeking to catalyse deep exchanges with a global community of innovators: we connect social entrepreneurs with thought leaders and key players in business, government and philanthropy to enhance social impact.

One of these major events is the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. 

The Skoll World Forum is the premier international platform for advancing entrepreneurial approaches and solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. The purpose of the event is to accelerate the impact of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs by uniting them with essential partners in a collaborative pursuit of learning, leverage, and large-scale social change.

This event is run by the Skoll Foundation. The Skoll Centre hosts the event at the Saïd Business School annually running its own events alongside it, such as lively Oxford Union debates on social impact education.