MSc Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- MSc
Overview
Are you driven by a profound purpose to tackle society's most pressing challenges?
Our MSc in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship provides the essential entrepreneurial toolkit for creators, activists, and leaders who want to build sustainable ventures that generate profound positive social and environmental impact.
Our programme is built on the principle of learning by doing. We move beyond traditional lectures and exams, focusing instead on a curriculum where you apply entrepreneurial methods directly to real-world social problems. Through collaborative, project-based work with external partners, you will gain the hands-on experience and critical skills needed to design and launch effective, scalable solutions that truly make a difference.
Programme highlights:
- Purpose-Driven, Practice-Led: Our curriculum is centred on practical application and teamwork, not exams. We welcome students from any academic discipline who share a commitment to building a better world, whether through a social enterprise, a nonprofit, or as a champion of change within a larger organisation.
- Practice-Led, Industry-Connected: Our curriculum is built around teamwork and solving real-world challenges, not exams. This immersive approach ensures you gain invaluable practical experience in taking a social concept from idea to market.
- Use AI for Social Good: Explore how to use AI tools responsibly to create and scale positive change. You will learn to leverage this technology to enhance your practice and engage audiences in new ways, ensuring you are at the forefront of ethical and impactful creative work.
- Education Excellence: The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is an accredited Centre of Excellence (IOEE), meaning upon graduation you will automatically qualify for an additional professional qualification—an Advance Diploma in Entrepreneurship. The Centre is also a proud national award winner for our authentic, real-world assessment, recently receiving the AGCAS Academic Employability Award (2025).
- An Ideal Ecosystem: Bristol is a recognised hub for innovation and social enterprise, ranked one of the top five best places in the UK to start-up outside of London (Startup Cities Index, 2022). It offers a vibrant and supportive environment to begin your journey as a social innovator.
Find out more about the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Programme structure
Our degree is delivered through a series of hands-on units designed to build your toolkit for creating sustainable, positive change. The programme is structured across three distinct phases, and assessment is based entirely on real-world individual and group coursework, with no traditional exams.
Term 1: Becoming a Social Innovator: The first term focuses on mastering the core skills for social innovation. We will teach you how to use human-centred design to understand complex social needs, conduct primary research to define systemic problems, and build the foundations to become a world-class innovator for social good.
Term 2: Applying Your Skills for Impact: In the second teaching block, you will apply your learning in two high-impact, real-world business scenarios:
- Act as a Management Consultant, working for a real-world industry partner to solve a live commercial brief.
- Become a Founder, building a compelling proposal for a new internal venture or spin-out with your team.
Summer: Launch Your Venture: Your final summer project is the culmination of your learning. You will consolidate your skills to create and present a new product, service, or innovative venture, ready for its next steps.
Visit our programme catalogue for full details of the structure and unit content of our MSc in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Entry requirements
You will typically need an upper second-class honours degree or an international equivalent in any discipline.
We will consider your application if your interim grades are currently slightly lower than the programme's entry requirements and may make you an aspirational offer. This offer would be at the standard level, so you would need to achieve the standard entry requirements by the end of your degree. Specific module requirements would still apply.
We will also consider your application if your final overall achieved grade is slightly lower than the programme's entry requirement. If your achieved grade is lower than our entry requirements, your application may be more likely to receive an offer if you have additional qualifications. If you have the following, please include your CV (curriculum vitae / résumé) when you apply, showing:
- A relevant postgraduate qualification.
See international equivalent qualifications on the International Office website.
Read the programme admissions statement for important information on entry requirements, the application process and supporting documents required.
If English is not your first language, you will need to reach the requirements outlined in our profile level C.
Further information about English language requirements and profile levels.
Fees and funding
- Home: full-time
- £20,200 per year
- Overseas: full-time
- £36,300 per year
Fees are subject to an annual review. For programmes that last longer than one year, please budget for up to an 8% increase in fees each year.
More about tuition fees, living costs and financial support.
Alumni discount
University of Bristol students and graduates can benefit from a 25% reduction in tuition fees for postgraduate study. Check your eligibility for an alumni discount.
Funding and scholarships
Further information on funding for prospective UK and international postgraduate students.
Career prospects
This programme equips you with the skills to lead and thrive in the growing impact economy. Our graduates are prepared for senior roles where they can create measurable social and environmental change, whether by launching their own venture or by transforming an existing organisation from within.
Recent graduates have gone on to become:
- Founders of their own startups in sectors ranging from logistics to supporting the neurodivergent community.
- Innovation and Change Leaders in high-growth FinTech companies such as Monzo and Easol, applying design thinking to secure and excel in competitive roles.
- Programme Managers in international start-up ecosystems, responsible for evaluating and supporting the next generation of new ventures.
- Designers and Strategists within global firms, shaping the future of products and services.
- Consultants at world-leading firms like KPMG, using their strategic skills to create lasting impact for clients.
Contact us
- Contact
- Enquiries Team
- Phone
- +44 (0) 117 394 1649
- choosebristol-pg@bristol.ac.uk