Pathik Pathak

Faculty Director of Social Entrepreneurship, Founding Director of the Social Impact Lab, University of Southampton

I am currently Faculty Director of Social Entrepreneurship and Founding Director of the Social Impact Lab.

I am passionate about innovation in higher education, and I produced the Spark India social enterprise camp in collaboration with IIM-Ahmedabad, which was a finalist in the Guardian Higher Education Awards (2015). I also convene the Curriculum Innovation Module Social Enterprise, the first pan-university module in social entrepreneurship available in the UK.

As Founding Director of the Social Impact Lab I lead the university’s international work on social entrepreneurship. This includes consultancy for universities, governments and corporate business on social entrepreneurship and leadership as well as collaborative programmes such as the International Social Innovation Challenge Series and training courses.

My current research is a cross-cultural exploration of social entrepreneurship and discourses of employability in global higher education. I am interested in the motivations behind the growth of social entrepreneurship among young people, how universities are responding, and what this says both about the graduate labour market and skills futures.

As a result of my work in social entrepreneurship education, I have been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samann in 2015 for outstanding contributions to education.

My current research is a cross-cultural exploration of social entrepreneurship and discourses of employability in global higher education.

The research explores trends in the UK, North America, and India.

I am interested in the motivations behind the growth of social entrepreneurship among young people (both through grassroots action and organised societies) and how universities are responding both within and outside the curriculum. The research seeks to illuminate transformations in the graduate labour market and skills futures.