Social entrepreneurship to ease energy poverty

María Jose Manjón Rodríguez was awarded an international doctorate with Cum Laude for her thesis “Bridging disconnections from social entrepreneurship to tackle Energy poverty”. This is the first doctoral thesis from the CETIS programme of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (Comillas ICADE) together with the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship of the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow). This thesis is also part of the multidisciplinary work of the Chair of Energy and Poverty at the School of Engineering (Comillas ICAI), directed by Efraim Centeno, in its business area.

This is the result of three and a half years of collaboration between the two universities through their co-directors, the lecturers Amparo Merino, from Comillas ICADE and Iain Cairns from the University of Strathclyde, and the participation in diverse working groups related to innovation and entrepreneurship studies, such as the Research Group Global Socially Progressive Entrepreneurship and Innovation, ledy by Dr. Nicodopoulo and the Energy and Business research group led by Dr. Mathew Hanon.

This thesis is an opportunity to highlight the result of the collaboration between the University of Strathclyde and Comillas Pontifical University in the field of business management and energy in order to deepen the study of social entrepreneurship in the field of complex social problems and thus make visible the relevance of the network of people in the field of energy poverty for a fair transition.

“Thanks to the stay in Glasgow and the ongoing collaboration with the Scottish university of Strathclyde, we have been able to share knowledge from different geographical research environments and collaborate to enrich our path in this PhD,” explained María José Manjón, now a Doctor. It also included suggestions for improvements to national policies on energy poverty and social innovation that can be applicable within the interdisciplinary scope of the Chair of Energy and Poverty.