The Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change supports a wide range of research activities by faculty and students on climate change and social enterprise areas. These activities focus on how business techniques, know-how, and skills can create social and environmental as well as economic value in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors. The interdisciplinary nature of these topics lends itself to collaboration with other areas of the Business School, Columbia University, and beyond. Faculty and students are able to establish numerous research connections to further their inquiry and analysis of social and climate impact topics, and to highlight innovations and key insights from practitioners and organizations.
Business School faculty have a wide range of interests in social and climate impact. The Tamer Institute provides funding for high-quality academic research by tenured or tenure-track Columbia faculty who have research projects relevant to social and environmental topics. Research symposiums with practitioners, academics, alumni, and students also contribute to ongoing research projects. Symposiums have focused on topics including education reform; socially responsible investing (SRI) and corporate responsibility (the role of shareholders, modeling determinants, and payoffs of CR, and the activities and impact of SRI funds); microfinance and micro-insurance (the impact of private sector insurance in Assam, India and issues affecting the scalability of microfinance and the potential for default); poverty; and social entrepreneurship (current trends in the capital markets affecting social entrepreneurs, and issues for social ventures achieving break-even and scale). The institute's visitors program invites leading research academics to campus for one week, to interact with faculty, students, practitioners, and alumni and participate in a range of research and classroom-oriented activities.
— Geoffrey Heal, Donald C. Waite III Professor Emeritus of Social Enterprise in the Economics Division
Examples of faculty-led projects:
Climate Change Research ProjectsClimate change is an area of intense academic interest and study, and implementing solutions to the global climate crisis — advanced technologies, investment capital, and commercial deployment — requires the active engagement of the business community. Learn about faculty research on business climate change initiatives and employees, shaping customer behavior to combat climate change, using climate change prediction markets to shift climate beliefs, and more. |
Climate Knowledge InitiativeLed by Professor Gernot Wagner, Columbia Business School’s Climate Knowledge Initiative provides business leaders with the curated, actionable knowledge needed to pick investable and scalable green technologies, while unapologetically flagging areas where business and public interests diverge. Here you will find executive briefs, business case studies, slides, PDFs and more to share, adapt, and use to chart a high-efficiency, low-carbon path. |
Climate Faculty Research Seminar SeriesOrganized by Professors Geoffrey Heal and Gernot Wagner, this series invites faculty, adjuncts, and PhD students for events on climate change, such as rethinking green bonds, the economics of carbon accounting, and more. |
Inclusive Entrepreneurship Research ProjectsLed by Professor Dan Wang, this series of projects engaging CBS and Columbia faculty, as well as PhD students and post-docs, focus on venture ecosystems within local communities through bridging social, digital, and economic divides. Read more about the focus of these ongoing projects. |
Environmental Protection through Incentives and Commerce (EPIC)EPIC is a joint program of the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC) and Columbia Business School. EPIC’s research activities focus on incentive-based approaches to conservation including market and commercial enterprise activities, and is funded by the Luce Foundation and the Roskind Family Foundation. EPIC Luce Foundation Research Assistantships are available to Columbia MBA students and provide course credit via an independent study with professor Geoffrey Heal and a stipend. Students research case studies that highlight specific actions by firms using market incentives for conservation in such areas as: alternative energy, resource extraction, ecotourism, watershed services, endangered species, and other related topics of interest to students. |
MBA StudentsStudents have the opportunity to contribute to faculty-led research projects and initiatives described above. Alternatively, students interested in research topics in other areas of social enterprise or in writing cases can pursue projects for credit as an independent study (which requires a non-adjunct faculty supervisor), or integrate research into existing elective courses as a final paper. Cases recently developed by students under the supervision of faculty have examined project finance in emerging markets (the Equator Principles), innovations within charter schools, and nonprofit governance and management. |