Abstract
Social enterprises are seeking to engage with external stakeholders to increase their innovation capabilities and accordingly strengthen their competitiveness. And it has been suggested that involvement in university-industry collaboration (UIC) could be an effective approach to meet their needs. However, to the best of our knowledge, no previous study has investigated collaboration implementation process between universities and social enterprises. To bridge this gap, this study intends to investigate how such collaboration proceeds by conducting case study toward two university-industry collaboration projects between University of Manchester and two UK social enterprises (i.e., Plastic Shed and EMERGE). We are expecting that key findings derived from this study would enable us to depict a theorical and practical framework of how knowledge is transferred or co-created to achieve blended value (economic value and social value) and to create mutual benefits to these two dedicated sectors (universities and social enterprises). The study will also provide insights concerning enabling factors and barriers in UIC projects dedicated to social enterprises.