The Bertha Centre, which is run by 2013 Tutu Fellow Dr. Francois Bonnici, has been profiled as one of the top five university-based social impact centres in the world. The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship is at the University of Cape Town and is part of the Graduate School of Business. The nonprofit organisation the Bridgespan Group published the report which was done by the Skoll Foundation.
In compiling the report, it looked at more than 60 programmes within business schools at universities worldwide and includes more than 30 in-depth interviews with experts both inside and outside academia, analysis of five leading social impact Centres in detail, and a road landscape scan of programs within business schools and across universities. The Bertha Center was shortlisted in the top five showcased in the report.
The Bertha Centre was established only recently, in 2011, and is also the only centre in an emerging economy featured in the report. By comparison, Harvard's Social Enterprise Initiative is 20 years old. It is benchmarked alongside business school heavyweights including the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business; the aforementioned Social Enterprise Initiative at Harvard Business School; the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
According to the report, a decade ago, only a handful of schools invested in this work; today, almost 50% of the top 50 business schools in the world host a social impact programme, initiative, or centre. As a result of this extraordinary demand, Centre leaders globally report feeling pulled to serve a diverse range of stakeholders - from students to practitioners, philanthropists and governments - who are interested in seeking solutions for societal crises from public education to climate change to health inequities to the role of corporations in society, and beyond.
A PDF of the report can be read here. The background on the study can be read at the Bridgespan Group's website, and a news article on the piece can be read at Engineering News.
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