The Social Impact Lab
In 2024, we are delighted to launch the Social Impact Lab Fellowship Programme in partnership with five local organisations that are all advancing the SDGs in different pioneering ways within Oxford. Our joint partnership projects cover a broad spectrum of challenges from health inequities, climate adaption, social prescribing, inclusive employment, to sustainability inspired innovation.
The Social Impact programme offers Lab Fellows the opportunity to help develop an impact project that will make a genuine difference to communities in Oxford.
Low Carbon Hub is a social enterprise that develops community-owned renewable energy installations across Oxfordshire that not only produce clean energy but accelerates the transition to the zero carbon energy system needed for the future, providing electricity, heat and a clean transport system, all powered by renewables.
The University has committed to reducing its carbon footprint on the road to becoming net zero. Yet the historic buildings and de-centralised nature of the Oxford college system pose a challenge to this university wide commitment. This project will review across the Oxford college system to establish what energy related sustainability initiatives exist, who is working on them, what they are, what works, how are they financed, what challenges there are, and what opportunities there are for genuine inter-college collaboration.
Our Fellows will partner with Low Carbon Hub and colleagues throughout the University to contribute to this vital and lasting research that will help to expedite Oxford University's sustainability mission.
OIEP is an exciting organisation with a broad range of stakeholders that is striving to make Oxfordshire more just, equal, fairer, and sustainable. One of their key working groups is around inclusive employment. Community Hubs play a critical role in providing much needed societal services throughout Oxfordshire. Key research questions for this joint project include:
- What is working and what are the challenges?
- Is there an urban and rural divide? How is this playing out?
- How can hubs best support the drive for inclusive employment in the county with a particular focus on how they can best serve people facing barriers to employment such as veterans, refugees, and prison leavers?
Our Lab partnership will assist OIEP research and plan how community hubs can most successfully promote inclusive employment.
Active Oxfordshire is a charity that seeks to combat health inequalities throughout Oxford by promoting physical activity.
Adults with learning disabilities face significant health inequalities and have a considerably shorter life expectancy (around 20 years less) than the general population. Studies suggest that people with learning disabilities are physically less active than the rest of the population, more likely to lead sedentary lifestyles and more prone to obesity and associated health conditions. Active Oxfordshire want to ensure that their initiative 'Move Together' meets the needs of adults with learning disabilities and to encourage this group to receive support through the pathway. In particular, the Lab fellows will help to identify barriers that individuals face in taking part in physical activity, create a better understanding of the range of activities that appeal and provide recommendations for how Move Together can be adapted to provide more inclusive support.
Oxford Hub is a community focused charity working in Oxford. They support a number of projects, one of which is to support the development and implementation of social prescribing measures in Oxford. Social prescribing is the name given to non-medical holistic interventions that a doctor could prescribe a patient in lieu of medication. These could include social gatherings, walks in nature, trips to a museum, yoga etc...
Oxford Hub have identified a need for a database of social prescribing measures. The Lab Fellows will begin to build this new database which will provide a better overview of opportunities, allowing for greater collaboration between social prescribers in Oxford, and for better pairing of those in need of social prescribing measures to relevant interventions that are on offer.
OCFC are one of the oldest football clubs in the country and the oldest in Oxford. The club has a well-earned reputation for community engagement and want to take this further in making the club greener and more sustainable. Through this project the Lab Fellows will be directly involved in the growing relationship between sport and sustainability, looking at the following areas:
- What current measures exist in other football clubs (and other similar organisations)
- How could OCFC adopt or pioneer new measures to make the club more sustainable?
- What would the impact of these measures be on the players, supporters and experience of the OCFC venue
