Skoll Centre

Our Mission

The Skoll Centre’s mission is to equip entrepreneurial leaders for impact within and beyond business.

Over the past two decades, the Skoll Centre has been an instrumental contributor to the fields of social entrepreneurship, social innovation, and systems change. We have been equipping entrepreneurial leaders for twenty years, and the approaches we foster are needed now more than ever. We need leaders who understand that unjust systems are dismantled by many hands. We need leaders who can work within business but also beyond business to create positive impact. And we need leaders who are guided by evidence-based ideas and practices, as well as a diverse set of lived experiences.

How we achieve our mission

The Skoll Centre works via research, education and community

The Skoll Centre sits at the nexus of theory and practice

The research we catalyse informs our educational programmes, insights from the practitioners we work with improve our research and teaching, and the diverse community we bring together sparks the collaborations needed to drive systemic change.

Research: We catalyse research on how individuals, organisations and movements create systemic change.

Educational Programmes: Blending insights from research and practice, we equip students at Oxford and worldwide with the knowledge, skills, and mindsets needed to create systemic change.

Community: We bring together a diverse global community of academics, practitioners and students to share knowledge and forge new collaborations that spark systemic change.

History of the Skoll Centre

Launched in 2003, the Skoll Centre was founded with a generous grant from the Skoll Foundation. The following year, we welcomed the first Skoll Scholars and hosted the first Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

Skoll Foundation

The Skoll Foundation, founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jeff Skoll in 1999, catalyzes transformational social change by investing in, connecting, and championing social entrepreneurs and other social innovators.