Programme overview
This unique programme brings into the classroom expertise from the latest insights in social innovation research with LSE’s tradition for academic excellence, alongside practical learnings from our network of socially-focused organisations operating in South Asia, Africa and South America.
You will learn to think beyond current trends and fashions in the young and rapidly-developing field of social innovation, and develop critical academic views informed by cutting-edge research in management, psychology, sociology, economics and anthropology.
Based on this, you will learn how to design, launch and scale-up successful entrepreneurial ventures with social goals. Core courses will develop your managerial skills, and grow your talent as a successful leader of teams and organisations. Social innovation design projects will develop your professional experience and entrepreneurial skills, and give an opportunity to start your own social enterprise during your year at LSE.
You will have the opportunity to undertake an international field trip in a developing country, exploring in-depth the diverse range of issues faced by a local community. You will learn to critically analyse the root cause of social issues in their specific social, economic and political contexts, and to design effective solutions based on a clear understanding of the real problem.
You will graduate with lifelong critical skills and a platform for success in developing and leading socially-focused ventures.
The Best Design Award
The best social enterprise designs will be pitched to venture capitalists, well positioned to provide further support should they choose to do so. A financial prize will also be awarded by LSE as a tangible means of investing in the most promising project.
We are launching this new programme for the first intake of students in September 2017.
Curriculum
We are ranked #2 in the world for social science and management, and the MSc Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship programme builds on this tradition for academic excellence with a cutting-edge academic curriculum.
Core courses will develop your insights and understanding of social issues, and provide a world-class training in the development of social innovations to address fundamental societal problems in a range of different economic, political and geographic contexts. You will also develop managerial and leadership skills, to provide the foundation to launch, sustain and scale up socially-focused entrepreneurial ventures.
Core courses will also include an international field trip to gain first-hand experience with socially-focused organisations in a developing country, as well as the opportunity to work on a practical innovation design project. These projects offer the chance to develop your own social venture during your year at LSE.
Pre-sessional classes (non-assessed & optional)
Students may be required to attend pre-sessional classes (classroom-based or online) before the beginning of the programme. Pre-sessional classes provide additional knowledge prior to the commencement of formal lectures. Whilst they are optional, we encourage all students to take them as they provide the necessary basic pre-requisites to succeed on the programme and its core courses.
Compulsory core courses (2.5 units)
Social innovation design:
Two core courses will focus on understanding and design of solutions for social challenges. These courses draw on the LSE Department of Management's 10 years of experience in conducting research projects and field design programmes with an ecosystem of local partners in South Asia, Africa and South America.
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Understanding Social Problems for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (0.5 unit)
This course focuses on designing an effective social enterprise, which can range from a start up (e.g. a new local business or NGO) to a new socially-focused unit within a large organisation (e.g. a multinational company or global NGO/foundation). The course begins with an understanding of the causes of poverty and inequality in situ for a specific target group, and develops a core understanding of a wide variety of social problems from economic, psychological and sociological perspectives. Students will have the opportunity to engage in a field trip to an emerging market, where they will explore in depth the root cause of a social challenge in the local context, undertaking initial data collection and defining a pression problem they wish to address in the Social Innovation Design course (below).
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Social Innovation Design (0.5 unit)
This course takes the social problem identified in the Understanding Social Problems for Innovation and Entrepreneurship course above as a starting point, and provides a rigorous overview of insights, concepts, frameworks, methods and tools for designing and scaling up a new social entreprise, ranging from business model innovation to crowd funding and impact assessment. A key component of the course will be a social enterprise design project where student groups are provided with a step-by-step methodology and coaching to develop a comprehensive enterprise solution to the problem highlighted during their field trip.
Core management fundamentals:
Two core courses will focus on the fundamentals of organisational management, with concepts, terminology and frameworks in marketing, organisational behaviour, economics, accounting and quantitative research. This is designed to build students' ability to make good judgements and better business decisions, and ask the right questions to critically assess issues in the in building, deployment and scaling of their social enterprise.
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Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship I (0.5 unit)
This course focuses on building an essential knowledge of organisational behaviour (such as leadership, teams, motivation) and marketing, to provide the managerial skills required to catalyse the changes required to launch and lead successful entrepreneurial ventures in social innovation.
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Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship II (0.5 unit)
This course provides a fundamental grounding in economics, accounting and quantitative research methods, tailored to meet the needs of social innovators and entrepreneurs.
Dissertation:
Learning from all core courses will be brought together with a dissertation at the end of the programme, with the opportunity to conduct an individual capstone project brining together a well-rounded understanding of social problems, techniques to develop innovative solutions, and entrepreneurial or managerial skills.
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Dissertation (0.5 unit)
Students have three options for the dissertation:
1. An individual design project for a new social enterprise, producing a sound and viable business model, a compelling plan for achieving long-term sustainability, and a detailed and convincing impact assessment.
2. An individual consulting project to solve a real-world issue for a client organisation. Project themes can be extremely wide-ranging across areas of specialisation and regions, all with a significant, tangible business problem to be solved. Past sponsors have included IMB (big data in Brazil), Riders for Health (healthcare transport in Africa) and Rickshaw Bank (business model renewal in India).
3. Students can also seek approval to undertake a research dissertation, conducing an empirical research project to develop new knowledge in the field of social innovation.
Optional elective courses (1.5 units)
You will have the opportunity to tailor the programme to your own interests and career goals with a wide range of optional elective courses from the Department of Management and other leading academic departments across LSE. The School's expertise in the social, economic and political world will provide you with a rich variety of options to deepen your knowledge and understanding of issues in social innovation and organisational management.
Available elective courses will include the following (the full list will be updated on this web page shortly):
Class profile
The LSE Department of Management attracts outstanding students from a diverse range of international backgrounds each year, and the MSc Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship programme is designed to bring a variety of global perspectives and professional experience to the classroom.
We expect to welcome 60 students from a broad mix of academic and employment backgrounds, including those currently working in socially-focused organisations or CSR and sustainability teams within large companies, as well as students from a wide variety of other backgrounds wishing to move into this field.
The programme is well-suited to graduates with 2 or more years' work experience in social innovation, however work experience is not required and more recent graduates will also benefit from the development of knowledge and practical experience offered by the programme. This diverse mix of experience and expertise in the classroom is designed to challenge your perspectives and enrich your learning experience.
Alumni profile
Name: Sofia Zab
Job role: Marketing Director at Branch.co and Co-Founder of Sokotext
Awards and successes: Hult Prize winner (2013), Forbes 30 under 30 nominee (2016)
Sofia studied a course on Business Model Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid in the LSE Department of Management in 2011-12. This former elective course has been developed into the social entreprise design core courses in the MSc Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
"Taking the design course has given me the confidence to pursue my dream of using business to fight poverty. I've been involved with the course since its pilot year, when as an undergraduate I was part of a student group that collaborated with the Management department in its design. I had the privilege of auditing it in 2009 and 2011. It was a very special experience for me to be part of a group of students who are all so bright and motivated to make a real difference in the world. Following the progress of my former classmates always puts a smile on my face - it is clear that the design course has influenced the career paths of so many of us. The course covered topics with a fascinating approach blending economics, Lean Startup, ethnography and social sciences, and included an opportunity to experience fieldwork with an organisation in an emerging market or to pursue a project with a forward-thinking corporate. To me, the experience was very typical of LSE as a whole: a place that encourages exploring radical ideas and getting engaged in interesting initiatives, while anchoring you with a sense of pragmatism and real-world ambition.
Since graduating, a group of LSE friends and I founded an award-winning social enterprise in Kenya called Sokotext. The business model has since been replicated by my co-founders in Colombia with huge success. Today, I am pursuing a career in scaling business-based approaches to poverty alleviation as the Marketing Director of San Francisco and Kenya-based mobile lender Branch.co. We are using the power of data to make credit available via smartphones to the financially excluded in emerging markets and within our first year have reached over 100,000 customers.
The entrepreneurial journey is neither easy nor straightforward, but the satisfaction of forging your own path and creating a positive impact in the world makes it all worth it. It is so fulfilling for me to be able to pursue a career where I can utilise my skills and efforts towards a greater purpose, and I am grateful to the Professors at LSE for encouraging me throughout the years. I truly believe that we can end poverty in our lifetimes, and that we will do it through business."
Career development with the MSc Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
LSE is ranked #5 in the world for its reputation with employers (QS ranking 2016), and the MSc Social Innovation and Entrepreneurships offers the opportunity to develop your career as a talented, insightful and entrepreneurial manager.
The programme will provide the knowledge, skills and networks you need to take the next step in your career, whether this will be to launch or grow your own socially-focused entrepreneurial venture, drive forward your career in your current organisation, or find a route to transition into social innovation from another sector.
Graduates from the LSE Department of Management are highly sought-after in the job market, and go on to successful careers in a range of leading organisations worldwide. Many of our graduates have also launched successful start-up ventures.
LSE Careers
LSE Careers will provide tailored individual support with your professional development and job search throughout the programme. They offer one-to-one Career Consultant sessions, access to employers with career fairs, seminars and workshops, a vast database of employment opportunities via the LSE Career Hub, and help with job hunting, CVs/resumes and interviews.
Programme Director
Professor Harry Barkema
Professor of Management
Deputy Programme Director
Dr Nadia Millington
Senior Lecturer in Practice
Entry requirements
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Undergraduate degree at 2.1 level or above, or international equivalent. Applicants from any academic background are welcomed.
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Students admitted to the programme would normally have 2 or more years' relevant work experience. However applicants with less experience (for example an internship) are also welcome to apply. Please detail any relevant experience in your application.
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A GMAT or GRE score is not required, but a strong result from either of these tests may benefit applicants
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English language requirements
Personal statement requirements:
If you are applying for this programme, please note the following specific requirements for your personal statement:
Write a short personal statement (up to 600 words) about why you want to do the programme. This might cover, for example, what you will bring to the cohort, and what your particular strengths are.
Also, you should answer the following questions (your answers should be approximately 500 words each):
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Tell us about an experience you had with social innovation /entrepreneurship/ a project with high social impact. What role did you play and what did you learn about yourself?
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How will your past experience, combined with this LSE masters, help you to achieve your goals?
The total length of your personal statement – including the answers to the above questions - should therefore be between 1,100 & 1,600 words.
Your application will be considered on its academic merits. An offer of a place may be conditional on attending additional courses and/or passing qualifying examinations at a suitable standard, in addition to your degree. You should note that there are always many more applications than places available at LSE and possession of the minimum entrance requirements does not guarantee that you will be offered admission. It is therefore in your interests to apply as early as possible.
How to apply
Submit an application to the LSE Graduate Admissions Office:
Applications are now open for entry to the programme in Autumn 2017.
We operate rolling admissions so we don’t have a closing date, and places are currently available on this programme. However, we offer places on a first-come, first-served basis, so we encourage you to apply as early as possible to avoid disappointment.
Our admissions process is managed centrally, so please visit the LSE Graduate Admissions Office for queries about the application process and requirements.
Fees and financial support
Programme tuition fee: UK/EU £25,944 (provisional EU); overseas £26,448
The LSE provides a range of financial support options for UK and international graduate students.