Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
Impact Investment
Other languages of instruction: Catalan, Spanish,
Teaching staff
Upon request
Introduction
Impact Investment is an optative course of 3 ECTS. It consists of a series of theoretical classes, and practical sessions, as well as two round tables with the participation of the practitioners on the most urgent topics within the field of Impact Investment. The course widely applies case study methodology. Therefore, students, taking this course are expected to contribute to the classes through active and thoughtful participation.
Pre-course requirements
No special requirements
Objectives
The primary objective of this course is to give profound understanding of the Impact Investment discipline. Impact investing seeks to generate social impact in addition to financial returns. This investment strategy is widely used to address critical social and environmental issues, such as climate change, sustainable economic development, social inclusion of vulnerable and marginalized groups. Because of its success in contributing to the solution of social and environmental issues it has attracted an increasing interest from policy-makers and societal stakeholders which in turn pushes conventional investors to introduce impact investing in their portfolios.
There are, however, issues that make this instrument somewhat tricky. For example, the measurement of the result is difficult: impact investing presupposes the creation of a social and/or environmental impact, which is difficult to calculate. Another issue is its limitations in terms of scalability. Very often, social issues are very local and require unique solutions. Thus, one idea that suited to solve an issue in one context, can be difficult to transfer in another context, which makes it difficult to scale it up. And finally, if in conventional investing the focus is a company’s output (product or service), in the case of impact investing it is the outcome and its impact on beneficiaries. All these issues make this investment mechanism more challenging and requiring special skills from the investors’ side to understand the nature of impact investing to reach the desirable social and/or environmental impact.
Therefore, the aim of this subject is to provide students with necessary knowledge and skills to be able to develop good impact investing strategies, minimize possible negative outcomes that might jeopardize the investor’s reputation, and maximize the desirable social and/or environmental impact.
Competences/Learning outcomes of the degree programme
- 53 - To acquire the skills necessary to learn autonomously.
- 56 - To be able to create arguments which are conducive to critical and self-critical thinking.
- 57 - To acquire skills which favour reading comprehension.
- 60 - To acquire knowledge that promotes respect for other cultures and habits.
- 63 - To be able to analyse business related behaviour and decisions and evaluate them from an economic, social and ethical point of view.
- 64 - To be able to plan and organise one's work.
- 65 - To acquire the ability to put knowledge into practice.
- 66 - To be able to retrieve and manage information.
- 67 - To be able to express oneself in other languages.
- 68 - To develop mechanisms that encourage sensitivity towards social welfare issues.
Learning outcomes of the subject
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Understand, identify and analyse different impact investment tools;
• Understand the challenges of the sector;
• Handle the different measurement tools that help quantify the invest investing success at Spanish, European and global levels;
• Identify how to apply mechanisms, such as Theory of Change, to ensure the achievement of desirable outcomes.
Syllabus
Topic 1. Introduction and Overview: Evolutionary Context and Sector Foundations
- Institutional Evolution: Analyzing impact investing as a structural response to global economic cycles and the transformation of traditional philanthropy.
- Market Dynamics and Social Needs: The process of integrating social issues into the financial value chain and the creation of new asset classes.
- Intervention Models: Exploring the tension between symptomatic social reform and addressing structural root causes through private investment.
Topic 2. Impact measurement and Standardization
- Economics of Measurement: Development of technical frameworks (SROI, IRIS+) for monetizing social value and converting it into comparable data for investors.
- Impact on Governance: How metrics and KPIs influence decision-making and project prioritization within social organizations.
- Funder-Beneficiary Dynamics: Analysis of information asymmetry and control mechanisms based on measurable outcomes and external audits.
Topic 3. Microfinancing and Emerging Market Inclusion
- Financial System Expansion: The role of microfinance in formalizing informal economies and expanding banking services in developing regions.
- Institutional Transformation: Case studies on the transition of microfinance from NGO models to commercial, publicly traded entities.
- Sustainability and Debt: Analyzing the economic effects of credit as a development tool and the implications of debt at the "base of the pyramid."
Topic 4. Financial Innovation: Crowdfunding and Social VC
- Digital Platforms: The impact of technology on risk distribution and the mobilization of citizen capital toward projects of public interest.
- Social Venture Capital: Analyzing VC applied to essential services (healthcare, education, housing) and its effect on public policy configuration.
- Scalability Models: Operational tensions between maximizing financial returns and the depth of social impact in high-growth enterprises.
Topic 5. Ownership Models and Governance Alternatives
- Collective Ownership Systems: Studying cooperatives and the social economy as management models based on shared ownership of production means.
- Democratic Governance: Comparing shareholder-oriented investment versus stakeholder-oriented governance.
- Future Perspectives: Integrating biophysical limits and economic justice into the design of transformative investment instruments.
Teaching and learning activities
In person
Lectures: 2-hour sessions with the whole group. The teacher presents the key theoretical concepts according to each topic.
Professional conferences: Sessions in which one or more specialists expose their experiences or projects to students.
Tutorials: Students can contact the teachers by email, check Moodle for their office hours or ask for an appointment.
Individual work: Personal study of the material provided by the course to assimilate the concepts and procedures covered during the classes. The objective of the individual work is an in-depth comprehension of and reflection on the contents of the course.
Group work/case studies and project-based learning: Includes work in groups of roughly 5 students to solve a case study or carry out a project linked to a challenge that will be proposed by a social entrepreneur.
Evaluation systems and criteria
In person
• Class participation: 10%
• Deliverables – case studies: 30%
• Final project in groups of 5-6 students: 20%
• Midterm (1/4) and Final exam (3/4): 40%
Bibliography and resources
Bastida R., and Mas-Machuca, M. (2020). Cració i gestió d’empreses socials. Teoria I casos pràctics resolts
Defourny, Jacques; Hulgard, Lars & Pestoff, Victor (2014), Social Enterprise and the Third Sector. Changing European Landscapes in a Comparative Perspective. Routledge. London.
Mertens, S.(2010), La gestion des entreprises sociales, Edipro, Liège.
Yunus, Mohammad (2011) Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs Paperback.