Universities partner with paradigm-shifters to boost hope

When UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently told the world that it faces a choice between “collective action or collective suicide” he may not have been aware, like most, of the scale of universities’ commitment to co-working organisations at the vanguard of social change.

Specifically, Impact Hub is one of the world’s leading entities that offers physical and virtual spaces to businesses seeking collaboration to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It has grown exponentially from opening its first office in London’s borough of Islington in 2005, to having over 100 Impact Hubs ‘hosting’ around 25,000 members in 60 countries.

Universities are involved, in part, because they know that 85% of the organisation’s entrepreneurs are actively working towards the SDGs, and that the UN recognises it as a leading actor in this mission.

Impact Hub Madrid, to take one example, promotes the work of the Global University Climate Forum. Led by the University of Pennsylvania’s Environmental Innovations Initiative (EII), on behalf of the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN), the forum brings students together to share ideas, learn, connect, and act on climate change.

This year’s cohort consists of 70 students, from eight countries, who are working on climate-related projects that will yield measurable results within six months.

Further groundbreaking work with Impact Hub is carried out by the Red Española para el Desarrollo Sostenible (REDS), which is the Spanish section of the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

Supported by the majority of public Spanish universities (including Universidad Autónoma and Ciudad Universitaria de Cantoblanco in Madrid), some private universities, and several research centres, REDS bi-annually publishes a ranking of all Spanish cities based on their progress towards the SDGs.

A new paradigm

Impact Hubs can be difficult to grasp for those accustomed to traditional working methods because they operate in an entirely new paradigm. However, at their core is the fact that many entrepreneurs and businesses now do much or all of their work online, but still have the need to network.

At Impact Hub members generally pay from around €30 (US$29.80) per month to predominantly access the virtual community, to approximately €300 to have a physical office space in a building; and many others will have some kind of membership deal between these two extremes, depending on their needs.

Co-working means that many overheads, such as technical equipment and photocopiers are shared.

In return members have access to high quality facilities equipped with state-of-the-art technology (perhaps for podcasting or live-streaming a meeting); access to shared facilities; innovative business assessment and training workshops; and breakfast invitations, in which a member may give a brief talk about their social project (such as assisting a disadvantaged community, or removing plastic from the sea).

‘Work’ is defined in a much more holistic way. At times free live music concerts, massages, or yoga may be offered, as members strive to define what a better world might look like. At the heart of this incredibly dynamic and entrepreneurial space, however, is the importance of values such as trust, collaboration and courage; the development of a community, and the pursuit of a sustainable world.

The structure is also unconventional, with each Impact Hub collectively owning and governing the non-profit Impact Hub Association, which is based in Austria. Each local Impact Hub must comply with the protocols and policies voted on and approved by the members of the network, in what is described as a ‘distributed global operating model’.

Many of the Impact Hubs comprise hundreds of organisations and entrepreneurs; some of which interact regularly with members by giving talks or offering workshops, while others have very little contact.

In Madrid, for example, there are six co-working spaces. One of the first, known as Alameda, hosts businesses that range from InteRed, which promotes transformative education in places like Africa, to Bolsa Social, which advises on socially-responsible market investments. It also provides spaces for larger businesses from cloud-computing firms to Burger King, who might use it as a location to train staff.

Impact Hub has global sustainability objectives, but local organisations often choose their own spotlight. Impact Hub Madrid, for example, especially focuses on: SDG 8 (decent work); SDG 9 (industry and infrastructure); SDG 11 (sustainable communities and cities); SDG 12 (responsible consumption); SDG 13 (climate action), and; 17 (partnerships to meet the goals).

Further, each entrepreneur will have their own particular interests. In data from the Annual Survey of the Impact Hub Network, 2021, the three SDGs most named by businesses were: SDG 4 (ensure quality education for all; 27.4%), SDG 5 (empower women; 23.8%), and SDG 8 (promote decent work; 23.3%).

Enabling innovation

In this context, universities are involved in a huge range of Impact Hub’s activities to enable inclusive and sustainable innovation at scale.

One example is Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s (UPM’s) Centro de Innovación en Tecnología para el Desarrollo Humano (Technological Innovation Centre for Human Development, or itdUPM), which brings together over 200 researchers, academic staff, external consultants and students to address the SDGs, through the Clean Cities ClimAccelerator project.

This initiative, which has over €400,000 in funding, has used a competitive process to fasttrack support for 30 start-ups focused on the fight against climate change in cities.

ClimAccelerator has built on the collaborative ecosystems, already created within the Deep Demonstration programmes, which have involved 15 European cities (including Madrid), in focusing on solving practical challenges faced by cities.

Strategic partners include Impact Hub Vienna – which invited itdUPM to become involved – and a consortium of European partners, such as Ferrovial, Wiener Linien, and Wiener Wohnen, among many others.

"Impact Hub Vienna has played a key role in disseminating information about the project and its three phases,” says Simona Perfetti, itdUPM’s communication and collaboration facilitator.

The first phase, which started in May 2021, involved a grant of €5,000 for start-ups to develop their business model. The second, which began in July 2022, added €20,000 to work with public and private institutions in addressing real world problems. The third phase, with a date to be decided, will involve pitching their business plans to investors and clients.

“I have been most excited about the way in which the start-ups seeking to access the funds and support did not act competitively, but collaborated from the outset,” Perfetti says. “They involved city councils and the whole ecosystem of actors who each contribute their perspective and know-how, to address the common goal: the fight against climate change.

“The experience has been extremely enriching,” Perfetti added. “Historically, scientific knowledge has been slow to reach the market because of multiple barriers: cultural, regulatory, or simply a lack of collaboration between the main actors.

“With climate change, as with many other systemic problems, we can no longer afford to waste time. Clean Cities ClimAccelerator is an example of how a start-up competition can be 'reinvented' in a systemic way. It is a great learning experience for all the public, private and academic entities that have participated.”

UPM has been helped in this process by joining the International Sustainability Campus Network (ISCN), which comprises universities from over 20 countries that seek to share information, ideas, and best practices to integrate sustainability in their research, teaching and campus life.

Collaborations

Among the many collective actions at Impact Hub Madrid the ‘2020 Awards’ stand out because of the quality of the innovative Spanish start-ups that came forward.

One of the most impressive projects was Canussa, which produces fashionable plastic bottles using recovered fabric and discarded plastic to create high quality, durable accessories.

“We regularly share our experience at ESADE (business school), where I did my Executive MBA, and offer advice to start-ups with impact” explains the founder, Maria Cano. “We also collaborate with the University of Valencia on their Masters in Sustainable Co-design to aid students design products with zero waste.”

Madrid’s Instituto de Empresa SL (IE) University, a private business school, on the other hand, has offered a legal clinic over the last five years to provide law students who are working on social projects at Madrid Impact Hubs with legal advice.

Universities also offer special opportunities to members of Impact Hub. The Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca and social partner Innuba, for example, are providing two subsidised places on their Masters in Social Innovation course in 2022-23. The blended learning course represents the first of this type in Spain.

Several Madrid universities also collaborate closely with Aipc Pandora – a non-profit organisation based at Impact Hub Madrid – that promotes education programmes around the world for young people committed to learning about sustainability.

Aipc Pandora complements universities’ academic training with experiences based on volunteering, social entrepreneurship and cultural exchange in countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Cambodia, Thailand, India and Nepal. On the other hand, they have recently initiated a project called Global Youth Academy, which integrates the UN Agenda 2030 in universities, through online, hybrid and teacher training.

Universities as key partners

Scholars are overwhelmingly convinced that close collaboration between universities, business and the state is needed to achieve the SDGs, and secure our future.

“There are two perspectives of universities: one is of slow-moving institutions that are traditional in structure and find it difficult to adapt to the rapid changes taking place,” says Antonio González, CEO Impact Hub Madrid, “but at the same time at each university there are teams of professors who are highly motivated to back the new economy and support innovative entrepreneurs.

“We work with all Madrid’s universities, as they contribute in leading debates, doing research and ensuring technical quality. It is true that they now have a challenge to connect with young people who are finding their own channels and seeking out their own training opportunities. But the potential is enormous.”

In fact, the importance of universities in Impact Hub’s development goes back to its inception. “WU Wien [the Vienna University of Economics and Business] played a key role in setting up our impact measurement and learning system; conducting external annual assessments and bringing insights into academic discourse,” says Hinnerk Hansen, co-founder and current managing director of Impact Hub Vienna, and former Managing Director of Impact Hub Global.

“Universities are key partners, project collaborators and sounding boards for Impact Hubs.”

Higher education institutions are essential if the UN’s SDGs are to be achieved, as are businesses’ commitment to sustainable working practices. Organisations such as Impact Hub are at the vanguard of this collaborative effort. They are, therefore, at the sharp end of where many of the practical and ideological battles take place.

The situation may sometimes seem bleak, but as UN Secretary General António Guterres added after his comment about the possibility of collective suicide: “It is [still] in our hands”.

The importance of collective action to humanity’s continuation may be only surpassed by one other indispensable element: hope.