PhD Vacancy: Institutions for collective action, link between size, heterogeneity and resilience

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Are you interested in studying historical forms of institutions for collective action and their modern-day counterparts, such as citizen collectivities, cooperatives, and commons? Join our Institutions for Collective Action research team and work on the UNICA project, which aims to build a unified theory for the development and resilience of such institutions for Europe over the past millennium.

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As a PhD student, you’ll focus on the micro-level and study the functioning of a specific institution for collective action, with a preference for those focused on natural resource management such as in agriculture, fishing, and energy. The project will analyze the scaling strategies of various ICAs over time, create a taxonomy of archetypes of ICAs for the past millennium, and study the relationship between size and heterogeneity of members and resources and their impact on the institutional design of ICAs.

Not only will this research contribute to our understanding of what makes ICAs resilient, but it will also address current societal challenges such as sustainability and globalization. The project will be executed within the Institutions for Collective Action Team at the Business-Society-Management department of RSM.

Find out more about this PhD position here and apply before 15 May!

Rotary Utrecht celebrates its 100th anniversary with inspiring afternoon on ‘doing good’

Rotary Utrecht celebrated its 100th anniversary on Friday 10 March with an inspiring afternoon on ‘doing good’ in this day and age. The programme included short lectures by various speakers – including Tine De Moor – discussions, impressive live music, video clips of social initiatives and a closing drink.

The afternoon took place at a special location in Utrecht: Gasthuis Leeuwenberg. For more information about the afternoon and the speakers, click here.

Inaugural lecture Tine De Moor: ‘Shakeholder society? Social Enterprises, citizens and collective action in the community economy’

On 17 February Prof Tine De Moor publicly accepted her appointment as professor of Social Enterprises and Institutions for Collective Action at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University with an inaugural lecture entitled Shakeholder society? Social Enterprises, citizens and collective action in the community economy.

How to deal with the grand challenges of our current society? We know what to do, often discuss who should be taking the lead in this (governments? companies? consumers?) and there are many technological innovations that could help but we still fall short of making our economy more regenerative. Can a focus on an economy steered by the needs and collective action of citizens help us forward? Do citizens want to be involved and if so what happens already today? What are the benefits but also potential negative effects and pitfalls of enabling cooperative social enterprises? In “Shakeholder society?” Tine De Moor looks at the possibilities of bringing the roles of stakeholders and shareholders closer together.

If you would like to (re)watch the lecture, you can do so below!

Webinar Herenboeren: Participation of Members

On 15 March, Herenboeren’s Winter Webinar took place with the theme ‘Participation of Members’. A key pillar of the Herenboerderij is social connectedness. The local community makes these cooperatives possible and is the buyer of the products. But how do we ensure sustainable connection and participation of cooperative members on the Herenboerderij? This question is the focus of the webinar. During the webinar, Christiaan Bikker, project officer at the HAS, shared his findings on sustainable participation of cooperative members. Professor Tine De Moor, initiator of CollectieveKracht, talked about the resilience and development of citizen collectives. More information can be found here.

Symposium – From science to society: evidence-based lessons for (cooperative) social enterprises

On 17 February, our symposium “From science to society: evidence-based lessons for (cooperative) social enterprises” took place, followed by prof. dr. Tine De Moor’s inaugural lecture entitled: “Shakeholder society? Social Enterprises, citizens and collective action in the community economy”. We would like to thank all (online) attendees for attending these events! We hope everyone found it as interesting as we did.

We are already looking forward to the next event! In the meantime, if you would like to look back at the symposium, you can do so below!

Open seminar talk by Bram van Helvoirt

On 31 January dr. Bram van Helvoirt gave a very interesting presentation as part of our open seminar series. Van Helvoirt is a lecturer and researcher Future Food Systems at HAS Green Academy and his current research focuses on agrarian and food collectives, including the concept of ‘food as a common(s)’.

Open seminar talk by Sverker Jagers

On 24 January Prof. Sverker Jagers, professor at the University of Gothenburg and director of CeCAR (Centre for Collective Action Research), gave a very captivating presentation on “Climate change, collective action and the need for applied environmental social science”. His research focuses on various aspects of environmental politics, from public opinion to institutional theory.

Open seminar talk by Nadia von Jacobi and Sara Lorenzini

On Tuesday 17 January, Dr. Nadia von Jacobi and Sara Lorenzini were the guests in our open seminar series. Von Jacobi is an Assistant Professor and Sara Lorenzini a PhD candidate at the Department of Economics and Management, University of Trento. Their interest lies predominantly in ways to ‘amplify’ citizen knowledge in the management of natural capital. Von Jacobi and Lorenzini talked about forests as commons.

Open seminar talk by Agata Zborowska

Dr. Agata Zborowska was our guest in our open seminar series onTuesday 10 January, 10AM (CEST). Zborowska is a researcher at the Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw, Poland. Her research interests lay in material culture, property relations, critical theory, and cultural history of the 20th century. She is currently working on the experience of ownership changes in socialist and post-socialist transitions in Poland.