It is the first social innovation center in Portugal and promises to be a trump card about the path toward a more egalitarian and sustainable world. CATÓLICA-LISBON, in partnership with Galp and Fundação Santander, created the CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center, part of the network of economist Muhammad Yunus.
The CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center, part of the network of economist Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2006, is the first social innovation center in the country. Created with the support of Galp and the Santander Portugal Foundation at the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, the project was born to bring social innovation tools to everyone at the service of a fair energy transition and a world with less poverty and other areas of need.
The project intends to promote social development and businesses that positively impact society, with the main purpose of eradicating poverty and the climate crisis through the power of business, thus promoting social development based on business performance and business models focused on sustainability and inclusion.
The protocol with Galp and the Santander Portugal Foundation for the Social Innovation Center will be in on for a period of three years, with an external investment of 100 thousand euros per year. "We need a citizenship commitment to the younger generation, to be able to create social innovation and to be concerned with social issues. It is a creative dichotomy that fuses business and impact in the same approach", stated Filipe Santos, Dean of CATÓLICA -LISBON, in an interview with Jornal de Negócios.
How did the project start and how does it position itself on the foundation that social business is the future
The partnership signed between CATÓLICA-LISBON, Fundação Santander Portugal, and Galp aims to support the development, production, and dissemination of knowledge and projects in social innovation and systemic change.
The program is part of an international network created by Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, which is present in several countries and has already demonstrated impact on 47 million people around the world. The dream? Promoting a world “with three zeros”:
- Zero poverty
- Zero unempoyment
- Zero carbon emissions
Based on these assumptions, the project and its founders believe that the path to a more egalitarian and sustainable world is governed by models of social innovation, in particular social businesses. At the Web Summit 2022, where the CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center project was presented, Saskia Bruysten, CEO of Yunus, underlined that "social business is a profitable business, but one that is optimized to solve social and environmental problems as opposed to the old business world, which creates social and environmental problems as we know them".
The Yunus Center was born to disseminate the power of business to end poverty and the climate crisis, supporting this evolution through the growth of social businesses, which are the bridge to “building a better world” and eradicate the problems that are transversal to the whole of society.
CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center results from this partnership between CATÓLICA-LISBON and Yunus Centre, forming part of Yunus Social Business Centers created by Muhammad Yunus to expand the concept of business with impact all around the world.
The mission of CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center is to promote and disseminate Social Innovation as a tool for solving social and environmental problems - focusing on Portuguese society - and may also do so:
- In other geographies where the parties are present.
- Support and encourage social business initiatives and other models of social innovation in the pursuit of their impact objectives, contributing to the acceleration of the adoption of innovative solutions.
- Fostering links and joint work between companies and social businesses or other models of intervention based on social innovation.
- Develop training and capacity-building initiatives for social innovation.
Bringing an international project to Portugal: how to look at this privilege?
Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of the project, regarding the launch of this Center in Portugal, says that “this partnership between the Yunus Center and CATÓLICA-LISBON, the first in Portugal, is special to us since Portugal has been a case study and a model to follow in the promotion of social innovation and the development of new sustainable business models, with a real impact on society, in the European context”.
“We are very pleased and willing to work closely with CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center and its partners to achieve a world of 3 zeros – zero carbon emissions, zero concentration of wealth to eradicate poverty and zero unemployment by developing entrepreneurial skills in everyone.”
According to Filipe Santos, Dean of CATÓLICA-LISBON, “we believe that solving the complex problems of our society requires the participation of companies and the development of innovative business models with social impact. The development of the Yunus Social Innovation Center in partnership with the Santander Portugal Foundation and Galp aims to develop knowledge and programs that make this vision possible”.
For Frederico Fezas Vital, Executive Director of the CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center, “this protocol with Galp and the Santander Portugal Foundation is a fundamental support for the ambitions of the new Center that is now starting, and which will allow just supporting all the social innovation that already exists in Portugal, wherever it comes from, how to create new, more inclusive, sustainable and efficient models for social and environmental change.”
According to Inês Oom de Sousa, President of the Santander Portugal Foundation, “this partnership makes perfect sense, because we share the fundamental objective of supporting and developing projects with high social and economic impact, helping to reduce inequalities.” And she adds: “Fundação Santander Portugal was born to transform lives, for companies and individuals, with Education as a strategic pillar. We also intend to play an active role in the three areas of ESG, promoting a more inclusive and sustainable society. We believe that this partnership meets these goals of ours and that we can make a difference.”
Ana Casaca, Director of Innovation at Galp states that, “At Galp, the Innovation area aims to develop a portfolio of opportunities that enhance the energy transition and help us to follow the path of decarbonization. From a very early age, we understood that it will not be with technology alone that we will achieve these goals, because for the energy transition to be fair and inclusive, social innovation will be fundamental in the development of mechanisms and business models that make this technology, and its benefits, reach the entire population".
All those involved in this project have no doubts about their role in this ecosystem: helping young people and companies to gain greater awareness of what are considered the biggest problems of modern society, committing themselves to finding mechanisms that help those involved to walk towards a better world. No area or person is left out – we can all make a difference.
Social Innovation: what does it mean, and how can it contribute to the world?
According to Frederico Fezas Vital, social innovation is much simpler than it may seem, being more and more in the subjects of the day and the media and social agenda. Therefore, it is not strange or unusual to think that many companies already realize the benefits of implementing this model, not only for people and the planet but also for the businesses themselves.
“Whenever we talk about innovation, the tendency is to complicate the process upfront”, explains Frederico Fezas Vital in an opinion article in the Observador. “We think that we must invent something completely new that no one else has thought. Innovation is much simpler than it seems. Even when, as with social innovation, one seeks to solve or mitigate very complex problems”, he writes.
Social businesses are born from the real observation of a problem, adapting an existing model, changing small details to solve or supply some need. “Social initiatives won't just create market areas. They contribute decisively to break a vicious circle in various social and environmental problems. And that is social innovation”.
Simplifying the concept, let's analyze a practical example of social innovation that, in addition to having created a business area, had a positive impact on people's lives: Professor Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank. What project is this?
Grameen Bank was born in 1976 with a clear purpose: to help families with deep economic needs by taking an existing financing business model and adapting it to the needs of these people. This project, signed by Muhammad Yunus, allowed access to finance by population groups that live in extreme poverty, with conditions that break with what would be the norm of the current practice of this type of financial institution.
Grameen Bank ended up creating a new business area and had a decisive impact on breaking a vicious circle of poverty – when the term social innovation was not even thought of – by helping a fringe of society that had been forgotten and could not access funding.
And, for Frederico Fezas Vital, this is the true beauty of social innovation: originating processes that lead to the effective improvement of people's lives and the quality of the planet. These processes can come from any context as long as they cause a change that and impacts the world. “That's the beauty of Social Innovation. If there is will, competence and some resilience, it is accessible to all those who want to create it”, he also wrote in the same opinion article cited.
From theory to practice, here's what the CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center will do
CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center will develop a social innovation program, including literacy on Sustainable Development Goals. Actions will be promoted among young people in secondary schools so that they begin to internalize and apply these concepts around them and in the future in the job market.
Also in education, the center will systematize information on environment, social and governance to help companies better incorporate sustainability criteria.
The center also aims to understand the issue of energy poverty to enable a more equitable energy transition in society. For Filipe Santos, "resolving the complex problems of our society requires the participation of companies and the development of innovative business models with social impact".
CATÓLICA-LISBON Yunus Social Innovation Center will actively participate in a process that intends to be one of change, contributing to training young people and companies to apply new methods and business models that mirror a more egalitarian and sustainable world, opening doors to a society which, in the future, will have better conditions at all levels.