More and more young people in Austria are interested in social entrepreneurship and are founding new, socially-oriented initiatives and companies. The Social Impact Award supports these projects. It invites young people to develop their own project ideas that solve social problems in an entrepreneurial and creative way and offers them know-how, networks and resources.

The Award was founded in 2009 at WU (Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation) and is currently offered in more than 15 countries from Vienna to Tbilisi, Bern and Kampala. In 2018, hundreds of workshops reached over 8,000 young people and students working on their own social innovations. In Austria, the programme is coordinated by the Social Impact Award gGmbH. As the academic lead, the Social Entrepreneurship Center at WU supports the Social Impact Award on many levels. For example, in the design of the workshop curriculum in more than ten countries or in the implementation of train-the-trainer workshops and participation offers, strategic decisions and the implementation of several project evaluations.

In 2019, the Social Entrepreneurship Center was again heavily involved in the content design and implementation of all workshops in Austria. In addition, the Social Entrepreneurship Center is involved in the conception and implementation of the screening of the Social Impact Award Austria and participates in the jury meeting, whereby the selection of the finalist shortlist takes place together with other persons.