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UWA Business School
From 2011, the Centre for Social Impact and the UWA Business School will be offering a Graduate Certificate in Social Impact.

Dean of the UWA Business School, Professor Tracey Horton, said that the new Graduate Certificate was an exciting addition to the School's course offerings. ‘We are moving into a new business environment in which social and environmental innovation will be more highly valued than ever before. UWA is proud to be fostering the social entrepreneurs of the future.'

The new Graduate Certificate is for those working in, or seeking to work in, the not-for-profit, social enterprise, government, and public affairs sectors. It is designed to assist executives and community leaders by equipping them with the tools to build sustainable communities and enterprises.

UWA's commitment to social impact places it at the forefront of modern business education practices. Stanford Graduate School of Business' Center for Social Innovation offers similar courses to the CSI, and envisions: ‘A networked community of leaders actively building a more just, sustainable, and prosperous world.'

Similarly, students at the Harvard Business School's Social Enterprise Initiative have worked with the Mercy Corps in Palestine, and also developed a plan to improve housing and sanitation in Dharavi, India, hoping to transform the city from a slum into a thriving neighbourhood.

Like Stanford and Harvard, UWA's new Graduate Certificate programme will enhance students' capacity to lead organisations that create social and environmental value. Further, it will give its students the ability to operate in a changed cross-sector social landscape where the dynamism of the market is also directed at social innovation.

According to the Stanford Centre for Social Innovation, ‘A social innovation can be a product, production process, or technology (much like innovation in general), but it can also be a principle, an idea, a piece of legislation, a social movement, an intervention, or some combination of them.' And, anticipates Professor Horton, students undertaking the Graduate Certificate at UWA will be able to demonstrate these aspects of social innovation and improve local and global communities.

Specialist units will include: Social Impact: Entrepreneurs and Social Innovation; Corporate Responsibility and Accountability; Social Investment and Philanthropy; and Leadership for Social Impact.

Designed to be completed in a minimum of one year, the Graduate Certificate will be awarded to students who successfully complete four units. All units will also be available to existing Masters of Business Administration and Master of Commerce students.

In addition, the school is offering a new elective unit focusing on social entrepreneurship in action. The elective unit will expand the focus on urban, rural and indigenous social enterprise and require students to develop a complete business plan.

Full scholarships, partial scholarships, and discounts for people in the not-for-profit sector will be available to those undertaking the Graduate Certificate.
The Centre for Social Impact was established in NSW in 2007, with the UWA centre launched in 2009. I

t is a joint partnership between the Business Schools of the University of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne, Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Western Australia.

The CSI's mission is to create beneficial social impact in Australia through teaching, research, measurement and the promotion of public debate.

For more information, see https://www.csi.edu.au/graduate-certificate/ or contact Elena Douglas: [email protected]