Dr. Paroma Bhattacharya is the Head of Social Innovation at LSE Generate. She leads Research and Programme Delivery in the domain of Social Innovation for LSE Generate, the Entrepreneurship Hub at the The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) (part of the LSE Research and Innovation Division). She is also affiliated with the LSE Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa (FLIA), the LSE Department of Management and the LSE Social Innovation Lab.

Paroma has a Ph.D. in Management and her research interests and expertise lie in the field of social innovation and entrepreneurship, with a focus on the organizational behaviour of start-up social enterprises, the incubation and acceleration of early-stage social venture teams and social business model innovation in the context of emerging economies. She is the Project Lead for the following multi-disciplinary research and education projects:

• 'Passion, Purpose and Performance of Start-up Social Venture Teams' (India) - Funded by the ERC grant, Individual Action through Social Organizations: The Case of Poverty.
• 'Co-creating Sustainable, Affordable and User-Driven End-to-End Menstrual Hygiene Solutions for Low-Income Girls and Women in Kenya' (Kenya) - Funded by the Frontiers grant by the Royal Academy of Engineering
• 'Developing Resilient Founders for a better and more equitable world: Mental Health Toolkits and Frameworks’  (India and UK) - Funded by the Going Global Partnerships Grant by the British Council
• 'Exploring the transition from Entrepreneurial Intent to Entrepreneurial Action among participants of Open Social Innovation Interventions' (Global and Rwanda) - Action Research Project in partnership with UNLEASH
• 'Social Entrepreneurship as a path to Sustainable and Equitable Development in Sierra Leone' (Sierra Leone) - Funded by the Frontiers Champions grant by the Royal Academy of Engineering

Paroma completed her Ph.D. in Management in 2021 from Durham University Business School, in association with the LSE Social Innovation Lab. After completing her Ph.D., she was a Post Doctoral Researcher at the LSE Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa (FLIA) and the LSE Social Innovation Lab, working on her post-doctoral research project, funded by the ERC grant, ‘Individual Action through Social Organizations: The Case of Poverty’. From 2021-2023, Paroma was a Fellow in the LSE Department of Management, serving as a teaching faculty member for the Master's in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship programme. 

Paroma has a B.A. in English Literature from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai and a Master’s in Development Management from LSE. She has taught postgraduate and undergraduate level courses on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the LSE and the Indian School of Design and Innovation Parsons, Mumbai. She has worked for several years as a business and leadership coach for start-up social entrepreneurs at UnLtd India, a leading social enterprise incubator in India. She has worked on social innovation consulting projects for PwC and IBM in the UK, Practical Action in Sri Lanka and BRAC in Bangladesh. She also worked for several years with the international NGO AIESEC and spent a year in Denmark, working as the National Vice President of Human Resources and International Exchange Programmes for AIESEC Denmark. 

Her research, work, and field experience, in the domains of Social Innovation and International Development, spans across 13+ years and several countries, including India, UK, Denmark, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Rwanda.