Category: Highlight 2024

Grant for project on data memory of citizen collectives’ movement

Professor Tine De Moor (Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University) has obtained additional funding from the NWO Impact Explorer. This gives us the opportunity to take a big step in building the memory of citizen collectives.

Many network organizations lack the resources (time, manpower, finances) to manage data effectively, which hinders collaboration with scientists. That’s unfortunate, because research can lead to valuable insights that allow us to better understand this movement. It can help civil servants to formulate more targeted policies and citizen collectives to improve their working methods and use resources more efficiently.

Through knowledge exchange platform CollectieveKracht, we will deploy a knowledge broker who will identify relevant information and develop data structures to support citizen collectives in data collection and management. In this way, the knowledge broker strengthens the position of citizen collectives and lays a solid foundation for future research and policy.

Read more about this project

Rotterdamlezing by Tine De Moor – How value becomes resilient: building the community economy in Rotterdam

On May 13, Tine De Moor, professor of Social Enterprises and Institutions for Collective Action at Rotterdam School of Management, explored the value of citizen collectives during this year’s Rotterdamlezing. Are they the missing link between citizens and government? In the ever inspiring Arminiuskerk, Tine De Moor takes you on a journey through Rotterdam’s past to a distant future, which may become even more local than before. The recording of the lecture is now available with English subtitles.

“Rotterdam citizen collectives differ in some ways from the rest of the country. For instance, in our city there is a much greater emphasis on collectives targeting lower income categories and providing a solution in the social sector.”

Read more about the 20th edition of the Rotterdamlezing.

PhD Defence Damion Bunders about resilience of platform cooperatives

On March 15, Damion Bunders successfully defended his PhD thesis titled: ‘Gigs of their Own: Can platform cooperatives become resilient?‘ The dissertation is about platform cooperatives as an alternative form of organisation where gig workers own and manage a digital platform collectively. It includes an analysis of the challenges these cooperatives face to better understand the conditions under which they could become resilient organisations.

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Event sheds light on financing challenges of citizen collectives

On 25 January, we brought together 130 initiators of citizen collectives, policymakers, scientists and financiers to look for concrete solutions to the financial bottlenecks of citizen collectives.

We organised the sold-out event ‘Financing collective value(s): from challenges to solutions’ together with Triodos Bank and Katalys. The day was opened by Tine De Moor, professor of Social Enterprises & Institutions for Collective Action. De Moor: ‘Citizen collectives regularly experience financial challenges, both due to a lack of policy for this form of governance and due to a lack of confidence in their operation. This is mainly because governments and financial institutions have little to no experience with citizen collectives.’

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