Skoll Centre Visit: Dr Alex Nicholls

CSI is excited to welcome Alex Nicholls MBA to Australia from February to April 2012.

Alex Nicholls has been a lecturer in social entrepreneurship at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, University of Oxford, since 2004. He is the co-editor of the book ‘Blurring Boundaries to Reconfigure Markets’. He is currently leading a comparative transnational study of the politics of social entrepreneurship and innovation, looking at several levels of political and social action). Australia is one country included in the study, with others including: the UK, India and potentially Kenya.

Nicholls’ research interests range across several key areas within social entrepreneurship, including: the interface between the public and social sectors; organisational legitimacy and governance; the development of social finance markets; and impact measurement and innovation.

Nicholls is widely published in peer reviewed journals and has done consultancy work for not-for-profits, social enterprises, and the UK government. He is the co-author of a major research book on Fair Trade (with Charlotte Opal, Sage, 2005). His ground-breaking 2006 edition of a collection of key papers on the state of the art of social entrepreneurship globally was published in paperback edition by Oxford University Press in 2008. It is the best selling academic book on the subject globally. Nicholls is currently working on a new book on social investment.

He has held lectureships at a wide variety of academic institutions including: University of Toronto, Canada; Leeds Metropolitan University; University of Surrey; Aston Business School. He has been a Fellow of the Academy of Marketing Science and a Member of the Institute of Learning and Teaching. Nicholls also sat on the regional social enterprise expert group for the South East of England and is a member of the Advisory Group for the ESRC Social Enterprise Capacity Building Cluster. He is a non Executive Director of a major Fair Trade company.

Whilst in Australia, Alex Nicholls will be speaking at various events in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. CSI will post dates and details for events on our website.