The University of Pretoria and KU Leuven have joined forces to strengthen the academic eco-system for social entrepreneurship to lay the strategic groundwork in strengthening indigenous knowledge in social entrepreneurship in Southern Africa.  This four-year project aims to identify and bring together universities and researchers, connecting them to research opportunities and academic partnerships, creating a network of inter-university collaborations and support through knowledge sharing, developing a portfolio of research which employs regional educational material that is valuable to practitioners in the field.  ANSES was born out of this project and is an academic network bringing together social entrepreneurship scholars who are either based or doing extensive work in Africa.