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Master’s Thesis Competition

The Centre of Expertise for Social Enterprises awards the best thesis on social entrepreneurship every year. The competition is open to master’s thesis works from universities and universities of applied sciences.

Suomeksi

Nominate a thesis for the award

Have you written a thesis on social entrepreneurship? Do you know someone who has? The Centre of Expertise for Social Enterprises awards the best social entrepreneurship thesis every year. In addition to fame and honor, the winner receives a prize of 1,000 euros.

The thesis can be submitted into the competition at any time. The winner will be announced annually on Social Entrepreneurship Day in November.

Entries submitted to the competition by September 30th will be considered. Entries submitted after this date will be considered for the following year’s competition.

The application form must include:

information about the author of the thesis,
information about the educational institution and degree for which the thesis was completed,
title of the thesis and link to the thesis or thesis as an attachment
contact information for the thesis supervisor (in case the supervisor submits the thesis into the competition).

The work can be submitted either by the thesis worker himself or, for example, by the thesis supervisor (with the consent of the author). The theses submitted to the competition may be published on the website of the Centre of Expertise for Social Enterprises.

Application form and further information

You can enter the competition by filling out the form below.

Fill out the form here

For more information about the master’s thesis competition, please contact Harri Kostilainen, harri.kostilainen@diak.fi.

Criteria and evaluation of the competition

The competition is open to master’s theses from universities and universities of applied sciences in Finland. The works submitted to the competition must be formally approved by the educational institutions. The language of the thesis can be Finnish, Swedish or English.

The field of study is not limited in advance and the themes of the theses can cover, for example,

the importance and operating environment of social entrepreneurship in Finland,
social enterprises as producers of public services,
identifying factors related to the establishment of a social enterprise,
impact of social enterprises and making them visible,
social enterprises from the perspective of social innovations.

The evaluation takes into account the innovativeness, usefulness, a fresh perspective to the discussion, and the quality of research implementation. The awarded work can be empirical or theoretical research. The public availability of the thesis does not affect the evaluation.

The winner will be selected by a jury formed and appointed by the competition organizers.

All participants in the competition will receive a one-year membership of the Social Entrepreneurship Research Network FinSERN, which entitles them to participate in events organized by the association and other member benefits.

Theses awarded since 2011

The purpose of the award is to encourage students to write theses on social entrepreneurship and thus promote Finnish social entrepreneurship expertise. The aim is also to make the competence center known among the educational institutions.

The thesis competition was first organized in 2011. The competition was jointly established by the social entrepreneurship research network FinSERN and the Finnish Work Association’s Social Enterprise Mark. Later, the Association of Social Enterprises ARVO also joined the jury. In 2020, the thesis competition was relaunched after a two-year break under the Social Enterprises Competence Center.