Sir Paul Marshall, co-founder, chairman and chief investment officer of UK hedge fund giant Marshall Wace, has donated GBP50 million to the London School of Economics’ Marshall Institute to establish a new accelerator programme aimed at tackling future environmental, health, and social inequality challenges.
The Marshall Impact Accelerator – which is being unveiled on finance day at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow and is scheduled to launch in spring next year – will provide philanthropic capital for innovative social ventures spanning environment, health, social inequality, public policy and developmental economics challenges.
The initiative will combine LSE’s research expertise and the Marshall Institute’s existing government and policy networks, and provide grant-making services and resources for the social sector that have traditionally been available only to commercial firms and for-profit investors.
“We live in a constantly evolving world, and if we want to overcome the challenges we face, we need to embrace brand new ways of thinking, now more than ever,” said Sir Paul Marshall, who co-founded high-profile long/short equity hedge fund giant Marshall Wace along with Ian Wace in 1997.
“This donation to create the Marshall Impact Accelerator will support visionaries from every continent, as they create groundbreaking new innovations and change the world. I can’t wait to see what they come up with.”
Baroness Minouche Shafik, director of the London School of Economics, said: “The Marshall Impact Accelerator will provide a truly world-class environment for stimulating the creative and entrepreneurial talents of our students in the service of solving some of the world’s most intractable public and social problems.”
Stephan Chambers, director of the Marshall Institute, said: “As the world begins to turn away from a focus on ‘making things people want’ towards ‘making things people need’, the scaling up of social impact projects through the Marshall Impact Accelerator will accelerate this trend. Our aim is to create ‘impact unicorns’ –organisations improving billions of lives.”
Established in 2015 at the London School of Economics with a GBP30 million gift from Sir Paul Marshall, the Marshall Institute aims to improve the impact and effectiveness of private action for public benefit. In 2017, it launched the world’s first MSc in Social Business and Entrepreneurship as well as developing a range of other graduate and executive courses.
