Category: Team

Join our research group with ECCO PhD position

Research project ECCO (Empowering Citizen COllectives in societal transitions) has currently 10 PhD positions open. Professor Tine De Moor will be the promotor of the PhD position: Identifying prosocial effects of participatory decision-making in citizen collectives. This trajectory investigates whether citizen collectives function as “schools for democracy.” It explores how participatory decision-making within citizen collectives influences members’ civic engagement beyond the collective, examining whether democratic practices in cooperatives foster broader pro-social and democratic tendencies in society.

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Two additional team members to strengthen CollectieveKracht’s activities

The research group Social Enterprises & Institutions for Collective Action welcomes Brechtje Polman and Mickey Steijaert as part of the team. Both of them will work as community builders on the CollectieveKracht platform, developing its scope by connecting with citizen collectives and relevant stakeholder groups, such as scientists, civil servants and financiers. They look forward to bringing their enthusiasm for collective action to CollectieveKracht and to help bridging the gap between citizen collectives and science.

Welcome! See the profile pages of Mickey and Brechtje for more information.

Nadja Yampolskaya joins research group

Research group Social Enterprises & Institutions for Collective Actions welcomes Nadja Yampolskaya in her role as team supporter.

“I am excited to join the SEICA and CollectieveKracht team because their focus on social innovation and collaborative approaches perfectly aligns with my passion for applying technology to solve real-world problems. My background in computer linguistics and user research allows me to turn complex information into practical, human-focused solutions. I believe technology, combined with community-led initiatives, can bring sustainable positive change. I’m excited to contribute my skills to collective power for social impact.”

Welcome! See her profile page for more information.

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.

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Affiliate researcher: Taneli Vaskelainen

We are happy to announce that dr. Taneli Vaskelainen has aligned with the research group Social Enterprises and Institutions for Collective Action as an affiliate researcher. 

Dr. Taneli Vaskelainen is a university researcher of Sustainable Economy and Cooperatives at Ruralia Institute, University of Helsinki (Finland).

“I am delighted to join SEICA as an affiliate because its researchers share my enthusiasm to examine and empower communities as they try to provide solutions to grand challenges that vex humankind. I also appreciate highly the methodological ambition and wide historical perspective that is characteristic of the research group.”

Affiliate researcher: Florian Grisel

We are happy to announce that dr. Florian Grisel, has aligned with the research group Social Enterprises and Institutions for Collective Action as an affiliate researcher. 

Dr. Grisel is a Research Fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (University of Strasbourg, SAGE) and a Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (University of Oxford). In his book The Limits of Private Governance: Norms and Rules in a Mediterranean Fishery (Hart Publishing, 2021) he explores the history of a communal organisation and its role in the management of a Mediterranean fishery.

“I am delighted to join the research group on Institutions for Collective Action as Affiliate Researcher. I share the excitement and interest of the group members for the various institutionalised organisations that tackle collective action problems arising from the management of natural resources.”

Daniel Petrovics joins SCENSUS project

Research group Social Enterprises & Institutions for Collective Actions welcomes postdoctoral researcher Daniel Petrovics. He will join the SCENSUS project team. Daniel has a keen interest in urban sustainability issues, cooperative-based energy governance and organisational transparency. He is currently finishing his PhD on the scalability of energy communities. His research is based on polycentric governance thinking and the strategic niche management approach.

Welcome! See his profile page for more information.

PhD Candidate: Shreya Paudel

Research group Social Enterprises & Institutions for Collective Actions welcomes, once more, Shreya Paudel. After an internship with SEICA and completing her Erasmus Mundus Master, she now joins the team as a PhD candidate within the UNICA-VICI project, supervised by Tine De Moor. Her previous experience includes research on the short-term evolution and adaptation of institutions for collective action, policy analysis, and political economy analysis in contexts of South Asia and Africa.

“I am thrilled to join the research team, and RSM for the diversity of ideas and expertise. I see this as a great platform to build on my research interest and direct the outcomes towards actionable initiatives.”

Welcome back! See her profile page for more information.

Next step for researcher Véronique De Herde

Postdoctoral researcher Véronique De Herde is taking her next step after working with Social Enterprises & Institutions for Collective Action for 1,5 years. She starts a three-year postdoctoral mandate at the University of Liège, Center for Social Economy, with professor Frédéric Dufays. The research will focus on cooperative models of value chain organization in the agri-food sector. The objective is to disentangle the complex factors contributing to their strategic relevance for sustainable transitions.

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