The £1 Billion University Challenge
Opening up supply chains to social enterprises
Inspire2Enterprise works with service commissioners to make contracts more accessible to social enterprises. We do this by encouraging the inclusion of social impact criteria within public service tenders, and through programmes such as the £1 Billion University Challenge.
The £1 Billion University Challenge is pioneered by our academic partners at The University of Northampton. It aims to motivate the UK's Higher Education sector to allocate at least £1 billion of the £7 billion it spends each year on procurement to sourcing goods and services from social enterprises.
The purpose of the Challenge is two-fold:
- To help universities and colleges develop efficient, sustainable procurement practices at a time of budgetary constraints; and
- To deliver social value and wider community benefits by facilitating engagement with social enterprises.
As an example, one of The University of Northampton’s social enterprise partners, Goodwill Solutions, supplies office furniture built by ex-offenders. Every time the University buys a desk from Goodwill, it gets the product it wants at a competitive price, but also enables Goodwill to continue its employment programme. This in turn helps to reduce re-offending rates in the local area.
By encouraging engagement with the £1 Billion University Challenge, Inspire2Enterprise aims to support local and regional economies and open up supply chains to social enterprises. If you’d like to find out more about the Challenge and how you could get involved – either as a social enterprise or High Education provider – please get in touch.