An example of a SEM project. Social Impact Measurement and finding a balance between academic criteria and professional relevance

Abstract

This article takes a starting point from a Roskilde Universitet semester project in which the two authors took part and a previous article on SPOR written by Anders Siig Andersen (2013). Firstly, this article summarises the project report written for the second semester of the Masters programme Social Entrepreneurship and Management (SEM). This project analyses the Social Return On Investment method, which is a prominent approach to social accounting and it does so by using a case study approach to assess the method in the Danish context. The time and resource heavy nature of the SROI meant that the group found many difficulties to fullfill both the practical learning of this tool as well as the academic standards for Roskilde University. In his article, Andersen (2013) describes how the challenge of this type of project work is two-fold, consisting of a practical and an academic challenge. He argues that by integrating the two more in working with these educations will increase learning for the students. This article uses an example of a semester project in which there was a clash between the pratical work and learning experiences of the students versus the academic requirements to show the issue Andersen (2013) raises. This article aims to further the discussion surrounding this issue and to pratically show that students can find it difficult under current systems to fullfill their learning objectives.