Working Together for Social Entrepreneurship in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region

Strengthening collaboration with academic partners

By joining the Hamburg Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship, Leuphana—which has focused on this field for many years—is now bringing its academic perspective on social entrepreneurship to the network in a targeted manner. Alongside the University of Hamburg, Leuphana is thus the second university among the Alliance’s members. This underscores the central role of academia in the further development of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem—a key component of the City of Hamburg’s social entrepreneurship strategy. The strategy views universities as central actors that generate knowledge, train talent, and put innovations into practice. The Hamburg Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship plays a central role in implementing this strategy.

Boris Kozlowski, Co-Managing Director of the Alliance: “In our collaboration with academic partners, we focus both on the mutual practical transfer of scientific findings related to social entrepreneurship and on imparting social entrepreneurial knowledge to students. With its research and teaching in the field of social entrepreneurship, Leuphana is already setting standards in this area. That is why we are very pleased to now welcome Leuphana as a full member of the Alliance.”

Through various peer-to-peer formats and impact-oriented support programs such as HOLII or the Social Change Hub, as well as through proven startup consulting, the University of Lüneburg supports students and researchers in applying their academic expertise to their own businesses. With the Leuphana Social Innovation Community, it has also established a regional community that, together with Utopia Lüneburg, supports startups and established companies in generating new social innovations and scaling existing ones.
 

“Entrepreneurship Means Impact”

Prof. Dr. Markus Reihlen, Leuphana Vice President for Professional School, Internationalization, Entrepreneurship, and Transfer: “For us, entrepreneurship means creating impact: We want to address concrete social problems with innovative and economically viable solutions. This requires collaboration between academia, business, and civil society—and people who want to make a difference together. The collaboration with the Hamburg Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship is therefore an important step for us toward specifically strengthening social impact in the Hamburg metropolitan region.”

Leuphana and the Hamburg Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship have been working closely together since 2021. Since then, both parties have participated in workshops, forums, and conferences. In the future, they intend to further deepen their exchange, cooperate in teaching, and organize joint events for the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Hamburg metropolitan region.

The Hamburg Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship e.V. is a cross-sectoral alliance founded in 2023 by seven founding members—including the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the University of Hamburg. The Alliance’s work is based on the Social Entrepreneurship Strategy adopted by the Hamburg Senate, which outlines four key areas of action. As an effective link between various actors in the ecosystem, the Alliance is committed, among other things, to raising awareness of Hamburg’s social enterprises and their needs—in particular through the umbrella brand “Social Entrepreneurship City Hamburg.” The Alliance is funded by the Hamburg Investment and Development Bank.