Hira Wajahat Malik is an innovation manager, program designer, and doctoral researcher at Estonian Business School, where she works at the intersection of sustainability, technology, and policy. With over a decade of experience, she specialises in turning sustainability ambition into viable business models — designing accelerators and capacity-building programs, shaping enabling policy, and building the collaborative ecosystems in which impact-driven ventures can grow and systemic change can take hold.
Her doctoral research focuses on circular and sustainable business models and innovation, with particular attention to how businesses engage in living-lab-based circular innovation ecosystems. Alongside her research, Hira contributes to a portfolio of EU-funded projects and has designed and delivered startup acceleration programs for organisations including the Asian Development Bank, UNIDO, USAID, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. She has advised the World Bank and the UK's FCDO on blue economy and circular economy policy, and brings a distinctive strength in value-based communications that translate technical sustainability propositions into messages that move investors, policymakers, and customers to act.
Areas of expertise
- Circular and sustainable business models and innovation
- Innovation ecosystems and living labs
- Startup acceleration and incubation program design
- Climate and sustainability entrepreneurship
- Sustainable and green public procurement policy
- Multi-stakeholder engagement, consultation, and facilitation
- Value-based communications for sustainability and cleantech
Subjects taught
Business, Technology and Society
Ongoing EU projects
- Time 2 Scale (Interreg): a €1.8M project supporting sustainability and impact-driven ventures to grow and scale.
- Climate Engine (EIT HEI): building climate-innovation and entrepreneurship capacity in higher education.
- GreenGrid (SMP-COSME Eurocluster): a €2M project accelerating Europe's smart energy transition, connecting SMEs across Estonia, Portugal, Lithuania and beyond to support clean-tech development in areas such as grid digitalisation and renewable energy storage.
- Co-Forest (Erasmus+): developing inclusive, challenge-driven forestry education and training that equip professionals and students with skills for climate resilience, wildfire and pest management, digital transformation, and entrepreneurship in the forestry sector.
- RegioFoodS (FutureFoodS): strengthening the sustainability and resilience of regional food systems in the Nordic–Baltic region, mapping resilience, identifying leverage points, and developing policy recommendations, with a focus on the role of food businesses in building resilience.
- B2B Green Corridor (COSME): operationalising the EU's Tourism Transition Pathway through ecosystem-level coordination across large and small, public and private, and cross-border actors to navigate the Twin Transition.
- Green Path (Erasmus-CBHE): transforming Higher Education Systems for Sustainable Skills, Resilient Economies and High-Quality Green Jobs in Central Asia.
Selected programs & advisory (recent)
- Startup Impact Hypothesis Toolkit Development in collaboration with Estonian Cleantech Association
- Green Innovation Procurement Toolkit for Estonia, end-to-end stakeholder engagement, bringing public-sector offices to the table.
- CAREC Regional Startup Acceleration Program (Asian Development Bank, 2022–2023).
- Green Solutions Incubation Program (Accelerate Prosperity Pakistan); Women in Sustainable Entrepreneurship (WiSE) Acceleration Program (Friedrich Naumann Foundation); PFAN SME Accelerator (UNIDO / USAID).
- Blue Economy Road Map, Government of Pakistan (World Bank consultancy).
- REMIT Program, circular economy policy in Pakistan (UK FCDO).
Recent publications
- Moora, H., Haljasorg, M., Pehme, S., Malik, H.W., & Aus, R. (2026). From Policy to Practice: Challenges of Environmental Data Generation and Digital Product Passport Readiness for Circular Garments under EU Circular Textile Regulations.
- Khalid, R., & Malik, H.W. (2021). Energy access and gender in Pakistan: Policy brief. Policy brief for the GCRF project "Gender Equity and Energy Access in the Global South," Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University.