Applications for social entrepreneur scholarship programme open

Valued at R200 000, the scholarships will enable promising researchers to participate in cutting-edge research at the centre. The main focus of the successful applicant's research will be social entrepreneurship or informal sector entrepreneurship. If successful, the researcher will also join a consortium that includes internationally recognised researchers to focus on these areas.

"The UCT Graduate School of Business aims to be making leading contributions to research on business in emerging markets, with profound impacts on both practice and theory," says research director, Ralph Hamann.

He says the first focus will be on social entrepreneurship, which plays a role in alleviating social issues. Proving to be revolutionary in many areas, it also needs to be much better understood.

"Our first focus theme relates to the development of innovative, market-linked solutions to inter-linked social and environmental problems. Such initiatives vary in terms of their priority objectives, their scale or their organisational form and there are also on-going debates about appropriate definitions of social entrepreneurship, but a common denominator is the application of business principles to a social purpose."

He believes there are many examples around the world of social entrepreneurship, ranging from local and neighbourhood projects to global programmes and that they have shown that these enterprises can make vital differences in the lives of many people. "Its context and practices therefore need to be well understood, so that it can be better supported."

The second focus will be on informal sector entrepreneurship, which drives trillions of dollars of value creation and shapes the fundamental nature of economic and social life for billions of people around the world.

"Informal sector entrepreneurship has received remarkably little attention from academic research. So we want to take a deeper look into the opportunities and constraints faced by entrepreneurs in the informal sector, their impacts and consequences, and how they interact with broader societal and institutional forces, including public policy and formal sector business and their supply chains."

Dr Francois Bonnici, director for the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, says he hopes that the research will lead to better, bolder business in South Africa.

"For the Bertha scholar, the Centre will provide a broad foundation to understanding innovative market-based solutions to development goals and challenges and create unique opportunities to meet successful social and environmental entrepreneurs, leading thinkers in market based solutions, as well as blended value investors, foundations and philanthropists," he adds.

Promising candidates will be invited to a discussion with study leaders in late May, a followed by a four-day proposal development workshop at the end of that month.

For more information, go to www.gsb.uct.ac.za.