Social Innovation Fellowship 2021
About this Programme
Year Here is about learning in the real world rather than in a lecture hall. Through three major projects in very different contexts, you’ll have multiple opportunities to build a smart, scalable response to some of society’s toughest challenges. Year Here is a full-time postgraduate course and incubator in London designed to cultivate entrepreneurial approaches to entrenched social problems.
Free
Programme type
Applications Open
Applications Close
London, UK
Location
Facilitated By
Year Here
About the Programme
At a time of national crisis, we have an opportunity to reimagine society. Starting a scalable social business could be your best shot at impact – and learning on the frontline is where you need to start.
Year Here is an immersive, full-time course in social innovation. Over 10 months, you’ll gain deep insight into complex social issues and learn to build entrepreneurial solutions to society’s toughest problems – from the housing crisis to knife crime.
If selected to become a Fellow, you will:
- Get frontline insights. You’ll spend the first 5 months working with the people hit hardest by austerity and gaining deep user insight. To deepen your systemic understanding, you’ll also work on briefs set by clients like Crisis, the NHS and the Greater London Authority.
- Meet your co-founders. Our Fellows have an average of 7 years’ career experience in fields ranging from biochemistry to law, and from journalism to engineering. They will become your support network, your collaborators and, ultimately, your co-founders.
- Build scalable ventures. You’ll test and build your own social business, with the potential to progress to our Incubator and launch it into the world. Fellows are guided by expertise from our partners like the Boston Consulting Group, ForwardPMX and BNYMellon.
- Learn from expert faculty. You’ll get a personal mentor and receive tonnes of training from a faculty of more than 80 social innovation leaders – from award-winning social designer Lauren Currie OBE to Nishant Lalwani, Managing Director at Luminate.
Beyond Year Here
Finish the programme with a venture and you’ll get seed funding, business support, desk-space and client introductions to launch your business.
Our alumni have launched 39 social ventures including:
- Chatterbox, an online language tuition platform powered by refugee talent, featured in The Economist, Tech Crunch and The Times.
- Birdsong, the feminist fashion brand selling wardrobe stapes made by women paid a fair wage. Featured in Vogue, Dazed and Vice.
- Appt, a HealthTech business that uses behavioural economics to help patients manage their long-term conditions – with multi-year investment from Innovate UK.
Those that don’t start a venture join other fast-growing social startups like The Difference, Switchback and Beam or lead social innovation at FutureGov, Nesta and Catch 22.
Our impact
Since launching in 2013 at 10 Downing St, we have worked with 231 Fellows who collectively have contributed over 161,000 hours to crucial frontline services.
We have launched over 40 alumni ventures which have raised millions in investment and reached over 5,000 service users to date.
No course fees
Unlike a Master's degree or MBA, we have no tuition fee. This is a reimagination of higher education. Rather than spending a year in a lecture hall and paying £10,000 for the privilege, we challenge you to learn by doing – working on real social impact projects. Our partners pay us to be involved and that covers your tuition costs.
To widen access to the programme we have a small number of means-tested bursaries available and offer additional support through TfL discounts and recommendations for flexible paid work and affordable accommodation.
To apply
We’re looking for people with a solid professional skillset and an entrepreneurial track record. This doesn’t mean you have to have started your own business before but you will need to demonstrate that you have a bias towards action. Drive, passion for social justice and strong learning orientation are also essential.
Click here to register with Year Here and start your application.
It’s a 3-stage process: a written application, video interview and half-day selection workshop. Typically, 1 in 10 applicants secures a place on the programme.
Find more FAQs about the programme here.
Our alumni
Our alumni remain central members of the Year Here family, acting as buddies for new Fellows and sharing their stories as part of future programmes. You’ll also join us at events throughout the year – like Off the Record, GradFest and Crowdbacker. 97% of our Fellows find paid employment within three months of graduating from Year Here. Twelve months after the programme, 34% of our alumni are leading their own social business while 34% work for another social start-up. The remainder of our alumni work in government, innovation, frontline delivery or private sector roles. Meet a few of our alumni below.
Sophie Slater
Sophie worked with grassroots women's charities during her time at Year Here in 2014 and saw how cuts were posing an existential crisis to the charities that supported them. In response, she co-founded Birdsong, a fashion brand that connects women from worker to wearer.
She has written and lectured in sustainability for publications including Vice, i-D, Vogue, Refinery29, The Guardian and institutions such as Goldsmiths and London College of Fashion. Sophie served as a jury member for the D&AD awards and was recognised in Forbes' 30 under 30 list in 2019.
Mursal Hedayat
Mursal Hedayat is the founder of Chatterbox, a platform that trains refugees as foreign language tutors and connects them with learners around the world.
She is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, recognised in the Forbes 30 under 30, Natwest WISE100, and Ashoka Emerging Innovators lists.
A former refugee to the UK from Afghanistan herself, Mursal was inspired to create pathways into professional careers for refugees after observing first-hand the vast untapped talent in the community.
Josh Babarinde
Josh is the CEO of Cracked It, a smartphone repair business that gives young people an entrepreneurial route away from gang crime. Cracked It is winner of two Social Enterprise of the Year awards (Centre for Social Justice, 2018 and Evening Standard, 2019) and Josh was recognised on Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.
After the Brexit vote, Josh’s call for an independent office to monitor political campaigns was backed by over 160,000 and he became a founding convenor of More United. He is also a trustee of the Shackleton Foundation and The Funding Network.
Xenia Moseley
The Independent named Xenia one of the UK’s five freshest talents for socially useful design. She currently works for Blackhorse Workshop CIC as their creative programme manager.
During the 2014 programme, she founded Curiosity Club, an enterprise that challenges disengaged school students to discover their abilities by exploring their curiosity. Xenia has produced work for Roman Krznaric’s Empathy Museum, the Department Store for the Mind and Terence Conran – and has been exhibited in the V&A as part of the London Design Festival.
Sam Boyd
Sam joined the Fellowship in 2015. During his time on the programme Sam worked at the YMCA North London, and during his consulting project, he helped food-industry incubator Kitchenette develop a social offering, which became street food social enterprise Kitchenette Karts..
Sam is now Director of Impact and External Affairs for Switchback, an award-winning small charity supporting young Londoners to build stable lives after prison, where he has established and grown the charity’s policy and influencing activity from the ground up.
Sneh Jani Patel
Former Management Consultant Sneh is the co-founder of Bread and Roses, a social enterprise florist tackling the social and financial isolation experienced by many refugee and asylum-seeking women – featured in The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent, Time Out and Stylist among others.
Sneh is also a consultant with FutureGov and is a member of social innovation collective, The Point People.
Gallery
Programme FAQs
All your questions should be answered here.
Yes, the vast majority of our Fellows live in London. Our studio is in Hackney and our placements and consulting projects are all in London. Occasionally, Fellows have commuted in from nearby but placement hosts often can’t cover this additional travel cost.
We offer a limited amount of reduced rate accommodation through our partnership with Dot Dot Dot Property Guardians at £50-£75 per week. Fellows stay in a home that would otherwise be empty at a heavily subsidised rent. Flats are often unfurnished and in need of a lick of paint. You can read more about being a property guardian on Dot Dot Dot’s website.
Yes. If you have permission to work and volunteer in the UK and plan to build your career here, we’d welcome an application from you. Our Fellows have included Argentinian, Colombian, Bulgarian, Nigerian, Palestinian and Portuguese nationals.
Unfortunately, we do not sponsor visas and cannot provide immigration advice – but we’d advise prospective applicants from overseas to research the visa advice from the UK Government if they’re interested in the programme. It is your responsibility to check your visa status and eligibility with the relevant embassy or government institution before applying.
he programme is free. You will need a laptop for your project work. Support to cover your living expenses is covered on our costs and funding page.
Absolutely – in this case, we would ask you to provide good evidence of your other strengths and achievements.
We recognise that applicants will have made educational and professional achievements in a variety of environments and academic success is only one indicator of potential. While many of our Fellows do have undergraduate degrees and/or at least two years of work experience, if you don’t, we would encourage you to apply and demonstrate how you meet the programme requirements