Social Venture Pathway

What is the project doing?

The project aims to develop a new and dedicated multi-step pathway to support academics interested in forming a social venture. The unique pathway will include a set of tools and guidance documents, to allow innovation teams to readily guide the formation of a social venture.
The Translational Impact Acceleration Hub (Phase 2), Social Ventures Pathways project, and the RC CoP project will work together on this project to create complementary resources for both academic and professional services staff.

Why is this needed?

The project received Phase 3 funding and will be commencing soon. Planned activities are below:

Work Package 1 – Audit of material

• Deliverable: Audit
• Description: An external consultant (Liz Flint) will be engaged to support an audit of material created for academic & professional services staff to support commercialisation. This audit will include all templates and tools for social entrepreneurs, to find the gaps in the current disparate materials.

Work Package 2 – Creation of New Materials

• Deliverable: New materials to support the gaps identified in WP1.
• Description: This will include the creation of guidance bite-sized videos on social enterprise to incorporate legal guidance from Taylor Vintners. This could include a template for the Theory of Change, impact assessments, social lean canvas or the mission model canvas. In addition, materials will be developed for a mini-course to engage both externals as well as how to incentivise academic researchers in this space. There will be specific resources aimed at each stage of the innovation process, to be aligned with the TIAH process.

Work Package 3 – Funding Guide

• Deliverable: Guide on investors
• Description: Create a categorised guide to impact investors and a clear guidance document on routes to funding for social ventures

Work Package 4 – Sharing sessions

• Description: To take advantage of the large group of universities with varied experiences, we will hold one-off sharing sessions on topics related to social ventures, likely led by a specific university. Topics to be identified through the audit.

How can members get involved?

The project received Phase 3 funding from Aspect and will share in the session how members can get involved.

Contact

Charlotte Rowan, LSE
C.Rowan1@lse.ac.uk