Global issues, local solutions: rethinking wealth and health through the lens of social enteprise

Donaldson, C. et al. (2014) Global issues, local solutions: rethinking wealth and health through the lens of social enteprise. Technical Report. Glasgow Caledonian University, Yunus Centre for Social Business & Health, Glasgow.

Abstract

The Yunus Centre for Social Business & Health was opened by Nobel Peace Laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus, in June 2010. In short, the Centre aims to build a research portfolio in the broad area of "social business as a public health intervention", thus working on the cutting edges of (and interfaces between) public health research, social science and research applied to the "Third Sector". Staff and PhD students come from disciplines such as mainstream economics, health economics, sociology and social policy, anthropology, international finance, development and politics. A central part of the Centre's work involves researching the impact of Professor Yunus' ideas, particularly in the context of disadvantaged communities in advanced economies. In this respect, two main programmes of work are being pursued: - "microcredit, health and wellbeing"; and - "social enterprise, health and wellbeing". In this paper, we discuss the Centre's planned research programme in the latter area, although many issues (e.g. of study design and measurement) cut across the two. What is described here is a programme that has been put together by a group of people from the social enterprise sector and from various disciplines (statistics, history, geography, public health, art and design, in addition to those mentioned above) and subject areas (active ageing, homelessness, entrepreneurship, Third Sector) within Universities, across Scotland. The importance of placing this proposed research in a health economics working paper series is that (a) it has been funded by the UK's Medical research Council and Economic & Social Research Council to the tune of £1.96m, and (b) although many of the arguments are well-rehearsed in other fields, it would be portrayed as offering a new branch of health economics. Given that the research programme has just commenced, it seemed worthwhile to submit the basics of the research proposed to the scrutiny of our health economics colleagues. The originality of this research programme is a product of the range of interests and fields of expertise represented in this collective, hopefully creating a new scientific and research interface, that of "social enterprise as a public health and wellbeing intervention". What this then offers each part of the collaboration is as follows: - for social enterprise, we offer a new way of thinking about how this sector views itself and measures success; - for public health science and practice, we propose a genuine "upstream" route to health creation amongst the most deprived communities; and - for economics and other social sciences, coalescing around a grand "cost-benefit analysis" of the impact of social enterprise on poverty, isolation, ill-health and well-being will offer new and enduring frameworks for evaluating future activities, not only of this nature but also, hopefully, more broadly in the Third and Public Sectors.

• Item Type: Research Reports or Papers (Technical Report)
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Thomson, Dr Hilary
• Authors: Donaldson, C., Roy, M., Hill-O'Connor, C., Biosca, O., Baker, R., Kay, A., Gillespie, M., Godwin, J., Morgan, A., Skelton, D. A., Stewart, J., Anderson, I., Docherty, C., Fulford, H., Munoz, S.-A., Teasdale, S., and Thomson, H.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Health & Wellbeing > MRC/CSO SPHSU
• Publisher: Glasgow Caledonian University, Yunus Centre for Social Business & Health