Fil. Dr. Jan-U. Sandal Institute

AFFILIATED HONORARY RESEARCH FELLOW

4-year program

Promotion Ceremony

2024-06-17
Promotion for the title of
PATRON OF PHILOSOPHY

Speech of Gratitude

Ceremonial Grand Marshal Summit Chair Prof. Fil. Dr. Jan-Urban Sandal,
Distinguished Participants, Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very much grateful to summit chair Prof. Jan-Urban Sandal for this opportunity to speak on this 94th Summit Conversations on Emerging Issues in Social Entrepreneurship Worldwide.

In this momentous day, I am going to say just few words on accepting me by the Fil. Dr. Jan-U. Sandal Institute for the title of Patron of Philosophy after completion of the 4-year fellowship program.

During this period of 4-year affiliated honorary research fellow program under the supervision of Prof. Jan, my time and effort were mostly revolving around the connection of political economy, social innovation and entrepreneurship. As I believe, I was successful to dig out many crucial facts from the conceptual and theoretical perspectives in analyzing the practical experiences collected for the study under the guidance of Prof. Jan. Most of my work were concentrated on the above theme and the whole work has been concluded in the thesis of the program and is available in the institute’s website.

I think innovation can also be analyzed broadly from two perspectives; the corporate innovation and social innovation. Whereas corporate innovation is driven by the market and the customer demand; social innovation is motivated to fulfill the growing unmet need of the society, and this necessitate social entrepreneurs. Every one of us can notice that in the review of the lots of studies consisting of the body of the knowledge of social entrepreneurship; the words philanthropy, volunteering, charity and business-like things are used. With this anyone can observe some type of ambiguity while trying to go deep for the correct understanding of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is neither philanthropy, volunteering nor charity like things as it has been generally interpreted and understood. Also, it differs from the business enterprise as understood in general. Social entrepreneurship, in fact, can accommodate all the above along with a clear economic objective of putting an innovation into practice for transforming the society. Obviously, social entrepreneurs are supposed to efficiently handle the challenges and exploit the opportunity created by the political economy. Because social entrepreneurs are the individual who can think outside the box.

This is also related to the findings of my study under the 4-year program of the institute. I request you to visit the institute for full understanding of my contribution. I am very glad to share in this forum that my work has been accepted for the title of the institute.

Last but not least, I am thankful to all who come across this journey. Specially, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Jan-Urban Sandal, the wisdom, patience, and insightful guidance of Prof. Jan have been invaluable in this hard-earned Patron of Philosophy title of the institute.

Thank you!

Patron of Philosophy Dr. Achyut Nepal