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An overview of our current projects

UNICA – UNified theory for Institutions for Collective Action

UNICA aims at building a unified theory that explains the factors behind the development and spread of institutions for collective action (ICAs) across Europe over the past millennium, and that identifies which elements have contributed to the claim they would be more resilient than top-down, share-holder types of organizations. The project will allow us to connect micro-changes to macro-results, and to reflect on the potential outcomes of the current new “wave” of institutions for collective action. These results will be transferred to CollectieveKracht, a self-governing platform for self-governing ICAs today, which will be developed on the basis of the principles of Extreme Citizen Science, in cooperation with and co-funded by several external parties.

The UNICA-project is funded by a VICI-grant awarded by the Dutch Research Council to prof. Tine De Moor.

Knowledge exchange platform CollectieveKracht

The platform CollectieveKracht (or CollectivePower) facilitates the mutual exchange of knowledge and expertise that helps citizen collectives to become dynamic and resilient organizations. CollectieveKracht links citizen collectives from a wide range of sectors, regardless of their stage of development.

CollectieveKracht.eu is primarily for representatives of citizen collectives. The various partner labs also offer a place for scientists, (local) governments, network organizations, and financial institutions to exchange knowledge and information. The three pillars of the platform are knowledge exchange, building connections, and mapping the movement. See collectievekracht.eu for more information.

ECCO – Empowering Citizen COllectives in societal transitions

A broad consortium of scientific and societal organizations, including the national government, umbrella organizations, universities, municipalities, and funding bodies, have joined forces to collaborate on the research project ECCO: Empowering Citizen COllectives in societal transitions (2026-2030).

Citizen collectives, with their distinct institutional logic, can help strengthen local resilience and adaptability in response to these transitions. With their local roots, decentralized decision-making, and innovative approaches, citizen collectives can drive change, provided that governments treat them as equal partners and respect their autonomy. More research on the life cycles, impact, and partnership conditions of these collectives can help both sides learn from best practices. These insight will also be used to develop new models, methods, and tools that foster equal collaboration between governments and citizen collectives. Go to the project website >

CROWN – Collaborative Research Open Workspace for Networked data

CROWN is an extension of the knowledge exchange platform CollectieveKracht.eu, centralizing existing and emerging datasets on citizen collectives. Through CROWN, scientists and citizens co-create datasets while reaping benefits in the form of scientific and practical evidence-based insights. CROWN involves citizens in the scientific process, leading to a different citizen-scientist relationship through firsthand experience and tangible outputs. It provides sector-umbrella organizations and policy makers with much needed insights to track the development of this emerging organizational form. CROWN removes barriers to Citizen Science and embraces FAIR and Open Science principles to provide an open-source blueprint to Citizen Science projects in other fields. Find out more on the project website >

Scentiss – Scaling Social and Community Entrepreneurship

Social and community-driven entrepreneurs (SCEs) identify neglected societal problems and provide innovative solutions. SCEs struggle with scaling their initiatives to achieve full potential. Multiple stakeholders add to complexity and dominant actors present barriers for scaling. The Scentiss research project puts together a unique multidisciplinary consortium of academic researchers, SCEs and stakeholders. Our overall goal is to develop new knowledge that boosts scaling, based on collaborative learning processes and novel tools. We apply living-lab studies focusing on energy transition and local care. We translate our findings into viable, actionable strategies via scalable, bottom-up SCE initiatives and develop a learning track for professionals.

SCOOP – Cooperative resilience

As part of the Sustainable Cooperation program (SCOOP), an ongoing study examines how platform cooperatives in the gig economy can become resilient towards the future. The focus of the study lies on four key challenges of cooperation in worker-owned-and-governed platforms. How do founders of platform cooperatives manage competing demands during start-up? Under what conditions do workers stay committed as members of a platform cooperative? To what extent does digital mediation influence cooperative members’ participation in decision-making? And how do platform cooperatives employ rules to stimulate labour productivity and prevent freeriding?

Social enterprises are an important player in catalyzing innovative solutions to societal challenges. One of the biggest barriers preventing many social enterprises from scaling their operation and impact remains their lack of funding. While this has primarily been attributed to an insufficient supply of financing options available to social enterprises, scholars and financiers have recently started to remark challenges associated with a lack of demand for existing financing options. In line with this, scholars have highlighted a fragmented financing market, indicating that variations in supply and demand of financing depending on sector, geographical area or development phase. So far, the business model of social enterprises has not been vastly explored yet to study and analyze variations in the supply and demand of financing options. Analyzing the financing market through the lens of the business model is important for two reasons. First, it helps to understand whether the growth of the social enterprise financing market is benefitting all types of social enterprises equally, or whether the growth in supply only benefits a specific type of social enterprises. As business models vary in their degree of complexity and strategic tensions, they might influence the risk and return perceptions of financiers and therefore investment attractiveness. Second, the business model might also influence social enterprise’s need for financing, and the type of financing that is considered appropriate and attainable.

Common Rules

The Common Rules project follows from an eponymous project that ran from September 2011 until August 2014, funded by an Internationalisation Grant of € 45,597 by The Dutch Scientific Organization NWO. The original project regarded the regulation of institutions for managing commons in Europe from 1100 to 1800, aiming to understand how efficient and effective regulation can be developed, executed by well-functioning institutions. It compared bodies of rules by studying commons in Western and Southern Europe, using the regulations that can be found in various historical records, for several centuries in each case.

Completed projects

Go to the overview of completed projects >

Social Enterprises and Institutions for Collective Action

Research projects