Research for the 2022edition of the World Cooperative Monitor is underway; data for fiscal year 2020 will be the focus, along with a dedicated chapter focused on digitization in large cooperatives. The main goal of this project produced by Euricse and the ICA is to develop a multi-dimensional database reporting on the socio-economic value and impact of cooperatives both within a global scenario and in their regional and national contexts.

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UNTFSSE Knowledge Hub’s project output, Encyclopedia of the Social and Solidarity Economy, has been uploaded to the UNTFSSE Knowledge Hub website and Edward Elgar Companion Website (Resource website and Main book page).
Euricse contributed to the enrichment of this Encyclopedia with three original contents. The first two papers “Financing the Social and Solidarity Economy” and “The Financial Sector and the Social and Solidarity Economy,” both featured by Riccardo Bodini and Gianluca Salvatori. 
The third one “Migrants, Refugees and the Social and Solidarity Economy” features Euricse researcher Giulia Galera with Leila Giannetto as authors. 

MOMENTUM –“Breaking silos, promoting young third-country national women’s access to targeted vocational training and labour market opportunities through social economy” is the new project funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.

It will facilitate the socio-economic integration of migrant and refugee women, through interventions in the sector of social economy, in 5 European countries (Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Hungary).
Euricse is the leader of Work Package 2, which aims at mapping the obstacles and gendered needs faced by young TCN women in accessing vocational training programmes and the labour market in the five partner countries. 

To learn more about MOMENTUM you can visit the official website and stay connected with us through the 4 newsletters that will be sent from now until the end of the project! 

Read the Momentum Project – Newsletter 01

If you want you can subscribe here to keep on updating

The 110th International Labour Conference of the ILO in Geneva focused its general discussion on the topic of social and solidarity economy and its relationship with decent work. Euricse Secretary General Gianluca Salvatori participated as a member of the Italian delegation in the drafting group to which the concluding document was entrusted. The resulting resolution is the outcome of a lively debate among representatives of national governments, employers’ organizations and trade unions from 187 countries, which led to a unanimous definition of the social economy and the role that the ILO and the governments and social partners themselves will play in reconciling economic activities, social development and environmental sustainability. 

Read the resolution

Recently four new working papers in the Euricse series were released, of which two are written in Italian and two in English. The first paper, number 119/22, focuses on the role of the Third Sector in building a community health system utilizing the potential of the tools of co-programming and co-design. Paper 120/22, on the other hand, analyzes the start-up and enterprise processes of worker-reclaimed enterprises in Italy. 
The two English-language papers are focused on cooperative finance. Paper 121/22 discusses the case study of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) in Thailand; paper 122/22 recognizes the crucial role of ethical appraisal in the financial sector and investigates aspects related to the social and environmental impact of economic activities.

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At a round of academic events, Euricse gave special attention to the Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) sector and its mapping in Europe in the context of the European project B-Wise. Our researchers Giulia Galera and Giulia Tallarini attended the European Social Economy Summit (EUSES) in Strasbourg and the Iris Network Scientific Colloquium to illustrate some of the key findings from the research report. 
Soon the report will be presented at the International Cooperative Alliance Research Conference in Athens and at the seminar organized by SUPSI in Switzerland. 

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We have reached the close of the 2018-2022 mandate, and a new President and Board have been nominated to lead Euricse over the next four years: Professor Mario Diani takes over from the historic leadership of Carlo Borzaga, who will continue to guarantee – as President Emeritus – his contribution to the research institute he has chaired since its inception in 2008. In addition to his fundamental contribution to studies on social economy in its various forms, Borzaga has in fact been able to give birth to and grow what is now one of the most established research centers in this field at the European and international level. The new presidency entrusted to Diani, former Dean of the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento, will be able to further enhance and consolidate the Institute’s role, broadening its scope and forging new relationships with the academic world.

On June 16 and 17, Euricse organized the 13th International Workshop on Cooperative and Responsible Finance for Development in Trento, in collaboration with Federcasse, the University of Trento (Department of Economics and Management) and with the support of the European Association of Cooperative Banks (EACB).
During the workshop, scholars and young researchers from universities and research centers around the world contributed to enriching the debate on the role of cooperative finance in addressing today’s challenges, highlighting the ability of cooperative banks to support and revitalize local economies. Several new research papers are presented during the six scheduled sessions.

Highlights include discussions on such important topics as the balance between values and business, the role of cooperative banks, ethical finance, corporate governance of cooperative banks, sustainable development, and green finance.

To open the Conference were together Sergio Gatti, Director General of Federcasse, Silvio Goglio from Euricse and Flavio Bazzana from Università di Trento also Nina Schindler, CEO of the EACB.

SEED EU Project Partners met in Ljubljana on May 19-20 for the 3rd transnational partner meeting. The event provided an interesting opportunity to work together, present intermediate results of the project, and outline future actions. 
The SEED learning repository will soon be available online, was one of the results of WP2 presented on this occasion. The repository is a collection of tips and tools that guides social entrepreneurs throughout all stages of a social innovation project, from conception to implementation and monitoring.
Subsequently, participants were involved in an interactive exercise in which they shared their views and feedback on National workshops organised in each partner country in the weeks before this meeting to
design national competence centres. On this occasion, national pilot projects were presented.
The Slovenian partners organised a study visit for all participants to the Business incubator Katapult Trbovlje. Among many interesting cases, it was presented a social innovation project to improve children’s maths skills through an innovative hands-on learning approach. Children are guided through the several practical applications of mathematics and are encouraged to think that most of the technology they like, including robots and virtual reality, would not be possible without maths.

On May 10th, an international webinar online on the resilience of cooperatives during the COVID-10 crisis will be organized by the Ashkelon Academic College from Israel, in cooperation with Legacoop, Euricse and many other israeliane partners.

The senior researcher Chiara Carini has been invited to present the analyses of the new published Euricse’ Report “Cooperatives in Trentino: size, role and challenges during the pandemic”. 

Participation form

There are still a couple of week to participate in the JEOD call for papers for the special issue is open: Cooperative firms, participatory culture, and contemporary challenges. Essays in honour of Johnston Birchall. We invite submissions of articles that revive Prof. Birchall’s work by considering his legacy as a scholar of cooperative enterprises and their relevance to the economic and social challenges of our time. The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2022.

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In the coming months, Euricse will launch several new training projects on cooperative entrepreneurship. The first one is Feel Coop, a new high level training course dedicated to young people under the age of 35, in order to create job opportunities by developing innovative strengthening and efficiency projects in cooperative enterprises, especially enterprises in the Trentino region.
The second, starting in June, is The Foundations of Responsible Enterprise, a course organized together with Luiss Business School, Dynamo Academy and Adriano Olivetti Foundation.
It is aimed at managers who want to combine business performance with social, environmental and economic responsibilities, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).