Researchers have been accompanying, supporting and improving the understanding of the social economy, at all levels (regional, national, European and global). By doing so, research has contributed two solid cents to the consolidation, recognition and visibility of this ecosystem. And yet, research is rarely featured as having self-standing agency in international fora.
In the specific framework of the Social Economy Week held in Murcia in September last year, researchers took the initiative to organise a session devoted to featuring four of the ongoing Horizon projects that are currently scrutinising social economy organisations across Europe and some neighbouring countries to continue deepening the understanding around them and their contexts.
Conceived as a way to make accessible current research to other Social Economy agents, four Horizon projects were presented in a different way: ASSETS Project, DICES Project , EMCCINNO and WISESHIFT. There’s another one who wouldn’t make it to Murcia but with whom we keep tight connections: the SONYA project.
The idea was not to dive into abstract scientific aims or burdensome admnistrative project management lingo but rather, to jointly reflect on the overall individual and joint contribution of this mega collective efforts to advance the social economy. We focused on the planned contributions to practice and policymaking. In our minds are the social economy professionals who spend every day proving the viability of this alternative way of making a different economy as well as those public servants and decision makers eager to create the most supportive legal and institutional environment for social economy to thrive.
It was a pleasure to share the space with representatives from those four projects, Nerea Abad Itoiz, Aneta Quraishy, Neva Nahtigal, and Rocío Nogales Muriel.
The meeting in the end was attended mostly by social economy umbrella organisations and intermediaries, researchers and policymakers; together, we created a space for future exchange and alignment.
