What does it take for business to play a meaningful role in tackling today’s biggest global challenges, from living wages and climate transition to responsible AI?
A central challenge is becoming clear: while the volume of research and insight is growing, businesses often struggle to translate it into action at the pace required. Evidence is fragmented, difficult to apply, and rarely shaped through the collaboration needed to reflect real-world complexity.
As expectations rise, the ability to rapidly bridge the gap between research and actionable insight, and to do so collaboratively, is becoming a defining capability for effective business leadership.
That is why, in 2024, we launched the Business Fights Poverty Institute at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, with a clear aim: to connect academic rigour with business practice and support practical action.
Two years on, the Institute has evolved into a platform for collaboration between world-leading thinkers and forward-thinking companies, focused on generating insight that is credible, accessible and designed for implementation.
Why now? Trust, evidence and the business case for impact
The context for business action on poverty and sustainability is changing fast.
Across sectors, we are seeing:
- rising expectations for credible evidence in an era of misinformation and declining trust
- growing demand for impact data and accountability, as sustainability moves from ambition to delivery
- increasing pressure to demonstrate not just intent, but the business case for inclusive and resilient outcomes
- more complex global risks, from climate disruption to geopolitical uncertainty, requiring deeper collaboration across sectors
In this environment, companies need insight that is both robust and usable, able to inform decisions and support implementation.
The Business Fights Poverty Institute supports decision-makers by translating research into practical guidance, including tools, frameworks and outputs that can be applied in real-world contexts.
A unique model: academics and practitioners, working together
The Institute is built on a simple idea: the most effective solutions emerge when academic insight is combined with real-world business experience.
We bring together a Faculty of Senior Fellows from academia and business, with expertise spanning supply chains, climate transition, SMEs, inclusion, governance and emerging technologies.
Our Fellowship includes leading academics from institutions such as Lagos Business School, Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Tufts, alongside senior practitioners from companies including Unilever, Mastercard and Standard Chartered.
This combination helps ensure that insight is grounded in practice and relevant to business decision-making.
Fellows bridging global insight and practice
This year, we are profiling our Fellows through a series of interviews and podcasts. Examples include:
- Olayinka (Yinka) David-West, Associate Dean at Lagos Business School, focusing on innovation and digital inclusion in African economies
- Drew Keller, Director at Harvard Business School’s Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society, exploring how business engages with societal challenges
- Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi, Global Practice Manager, Digital Economy & Society at the World Bank and Managing Director of Digital Planet at Tufts University, focusing on digital transformation and inclusive growth
What we have published so far
Our work focuses on producing outputs that help businesses make decisions and take action.
Recent publications include:
- Adapting to the Changing Aid Landscape, developed with Standard Chartered Foundation, exploring how corporate foundations can respond to shrinking aid flows
- Climate Resilience for Micro-Retailers, supported by Mastercard Strive, highlighting how micro-retailers can adapt to climate disruption
- Five Bridges to 2045, setting out how business can contribute to a fairer and more resilient future
- Building Business Partnerships That Are Fit for the Future, developed with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), offering guidance for green and inclusive growth partnerships
These outputs reflect a focus on insight that is credible, relevant and useful in practice.
Three ways to engage with the Institute
As we grow, we are working with partners across business, government, philanthropy and academia to accelerate progress on global challenges.
There are three main ways to engage:
- Co-create research and thought leadership
Partner with us to develop evidence-based insight that informs strategy and implementation, including reports, briefs and toolkits aligned to your priorities. - Bring a business challenge
We provide a space to explore complex questions, from supply chains and climate justice to inclusion and responsible AI, drawing on expertise from our Senior Fellows and wider community. - Translate insight into action
If you have research or learning you want others to act on, we help turn it into practical outputs and share it through peer learning, global summits and AI-powered formats.
An invitation
We work with partners to define a clear focus and co-create research and learning around specific challenges. Drawing on our Senior Fellows and wider community, we combine academic and business perspectives to deliver outputs that are relevant and actionable.
If your organisation is interested in shaping evidence-informed business action on global challenges, we would welcome a conversation.
Join us in strengthening the link between insight and action.
Visit the Institute page to learn more:
https://businessfightspoverty.org/institute
