Centre Collaboration Incubators

Do you run a business sustainability research centre?

If so, you probably aspire to do research that helps solve real-world problems, like climate change or inequity. But you also face strategic challenges, like:

• Defining a clear and compelling impact strategy.

• Engaging the right partners.

• Attracting enough funding.

You are not alone. More than 200 sustainability research centres from around the world are members of the Sustainability Centres Community. The leaders of these centres share your aspirations and your challenges.

Since 2012, the Network for Business Sustainability (NBS) has been convening centre leaders to build relationships and share best practices. We’ve also compiled a database of over 80 resources, with advice on all aspects of running a centre. (If you lead a sustainability centre, join this free community!)

In 2024, we surveyed and interviewed centre leaders from around the world, to understand their goals and challenges and how NBS could best support. Their feedback inspired the creation of a new initiative—Centre Collaboration Incubators.

What are Centre Collaboration Incubators?

Centre Collaboration Incubators are a facilitated process to help a pre-selected group of research centres from around the world, working on the same topic but having complementary resources and capabilities, to scope a collaborative project and apply for joint funding.

We start by identifying a group of centres who are working on the same topic, and have the time and desire to do collaborative research. Topics can include anything related to sustainable business, including sustainable innovation, reducing scope 3 emissions, regenerative food systems, systemic investing, and more. The topic changes from one incubator to the next.

Once a topic and preliminary members are determined, Incubator members decide on a funding opportunity to pursue. The application deadline will determine the Incubator’s timeline.

The Network for Business Sustainability then facilitates a well-organized process (shaped by participants) to enable relationship building, problem framing, Theory of Change development, project design, and grant writing.

This process involves a combination of ‘closed discussion’, where Incubator members ideate and learn together, and ‘open discussion,’ where Incubator members share their emerging insights and learn from the diverse perspectives of global scholars and practitioners working on the same topic.

Ideally, the Incubator will unfold over 10-12 months. This could be shortened to accommodate closer grant submission deadlines.

(Note: If you are a scholar not affiliated with a centre, but working to build momentum at your school around a certain topic, we also invite you to apply.)

Incubator Objectives

Incubators help centre directors and centre-affiliated scholars to achieve the following objectives:

1. Build strong, trust-based relationships across geographically diverse centres (Global North and South) with complementary expertise, perspectives, and networks.

2. Co-create a high-quality, collaborative research project that aligns with members’ impact and career goals.

3. Identify a portfolio of relevant and achievable project funding sources, including applying for a joint grant.

4. Learn new skills and insights related to co-creating research with practitioners, and re-coupling knowledge creation with positive systems change.

5. Gain visibility with a global network of sustainability scholars and practitioners.

6. (Optional) Produce public outputs of interest to Incubator members, which could include case studies, practitioner articles, or theory papers.*

*Incubator members may want to package insights generated in the Incubator into public-facing outputs. The Network for Business Sustainability will provide project management support for these outputs, but all writing and editing effort will come from Incubator members, their students or research assistants, or from funding that members provide outside the scope of the Incubator.

Important Incubator Features

Incubators have a few key features, which we believe are critical to ensuring healthy collaboration, and research projects that produce real sustainability impact.

1. Co-leadership between Global South and Global North partners: Diverse perspectives improve innovation and deepen insight. We aim to have global representation amongst Incubators members, so the topic can be studied across different countries and contexts. Equity also matters, but power in academia is unequally distributed. We aim to flatten these power dynamics.

2. Systems thinking, interventionist approach:The research projects emerging from Incubators are grounded in systems thinking principles. Members explore the problem from multiple perspectives and literatures, leading to a deep understanding of which aspects of the system are resulting in unsustainable outcomes. This informs the creation of a Theory of Change, identifying actors and activities that could tip the system towards more sustainable outcomes at scale. The Theory of Change, in turn, informs research project design and grant writing.

3. Co-creation with practitioners: People outside academia, including business and non-profit leaders, policy makers, and community members, are deeply embedded in the systems that academics want to change. Understanding how these actors see a problem informs effective interventions. And engaging them meaningfully in the intervention and research process is the only way to make change.

4. Co-creation with a broad group of research centres. Incubator members engage in two-way knowledge exchange with the broader Sustainability Centres Community membership. For each Incubator, NBS will organize at least one webinar, where Incubator members share emerging ideas with, and receive feedback from, other centres.

Roles and Contributions

Incubators are driven by members and supported by the Network for Business Sustainability. Each party plays a unique role in enabling Incubator success.

Contributions required from Incubator members include:

• Regular and engaged attendance at Incubator meetings. This will average one 2-hour meeting/month, with meetings sometimes occurring in clusters.
• Active contributions to the research, writing, and editing required for the grant application and other Incubator outputs.
• A cumulative total of CAD 15,000 must be recovered from Incubator members to help offset facilitation costs. This cost is divided between the centres who join the Incubator (3-6 centres). It’s important to us that Incubators be accessible to all centres, regardless of their financial situation, so each centre pays according to their means.

Contributions provided by the Network for Business Sustainability:

• Proposing (and inviting members to shape) a clear process for working together.
• Facilitating meetings (or, co-facilitating meetings with Incubator members, as desired).
• Managing the project timeline, including tracking action items and organizing the group’s workflow.
• Raising the profile of participants and their work, by showcasing Incubator outputs to an international community of researchers and practitioners.

Join a Waitlist

The next Incubator isn’t yet open for applications, but if you think this initiative could help fuel your impact and career goals, we’d love to hear from you. Please take 5 minutes to join our waitlist, including sharing which societal issue you’re working on, and what you would hope to achieve through international collaboration. We will email you directly when applications open.