Impact Centre Erasmus together with partner university Koç University have been granted a seed funding from UNIC4ER for the Project titled: “Investigating means-end decoupling in social enterprises and the (possible) role of social impact measurement/management”. Koç University Social Impact Forum (KUSIF), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), and Impact Centre Erasmus will work together with societal partners on this project to create a research proposal.

Research proposal

Setting up new and engaged research collaborations across universities and with societal partners can be very time consuming. The support and corresponding seed funding from UNIC4ER facilitates the opportunity to gain first insights and from there, write a comprehensive and stakeholder-driven research proposal. It therefore does not yet concern the research itself. Focus is to develop a research proposal in which the parties want to investigate the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives by enterprises, the gap between impact-ambitions and impact-realization and the (institutional) barriers at play. Special attention will be paid on sustainability efforts by organizations and intensifying pressure on organizations to account for their social and environmental effects. Since the growing number of social enterprises in the Netherlands, Turkey as well as the European Union in general and several policies stimulate this type of entrepreneurship, there is a growing need for researchers to contribute and inform if, when and under which conditions these enterprises achieve the desired social impact with their sustainability efforts. The -(re)sparked- academic debate on means-end decoupling might shine a light on the gap between impact-ambitions and impact-achievements of enterprises.

Gonca Ongan, Emine Asli Mavi Siddiq and Agata Fortuna from Koç University Social Impact Forum, Seda Muftugil from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Marit Schouten, Jacqueline Scheidsbach and Karen Maas from Impact Centre Erasmus will work on a research proposal together with societal partners TSENOpent extern, EUCLID NetworkOpent extern and MVO NederlandOpent extern.

About UNIC4ER

UNIC4EROpent extern has been developed by the UNIC Alliance. UNIC4ER constitutes a joint strategy, structure, platform and excellence for engaged research to improve inclusion, impact and mobility within and between partner universities.

The European University of Post-Industrial Cities (UNICOpent extern) is an alliance of 10 European universities working together on education, research and community engagement to develop post-industrial cities. UNIC is located in economies in transition and in places that form a shared socio-economic environment of post-industrial transformations. UNIC researchers tackle social challenges by engaging and connecting citizens, society and public and urban authorities through research and innovative activities. Engaged research provides an interdisciplinary approach and method for systematically producing knowledge not only for society, but also with and within society.