During the General Assembly in Lille (2012) the constitution of an Advisory Board was adopted.

It was then called the Scientific Comittee, with the following functions
– To help build the historical and theoretical heritage of the network
– To contribute to the development of the network’s strategic axes
– To elaborate files that can help formulate the positions of the COCO (COordination Committee)
– Responding to COCO requests, according to an agenda
– Assist the working groups, if necessary
– Disseminate the knowledge and information acquired to the members of the network.

The Scientific Committee (SC) develops scientific work dedicated to the social solidarity economy, based on and in cooperation with the initiatives of RIPESS Europe members. It thus reinforces the visibility of the network, the credibility of its work and facilitates cooperation with the world of education and academia.

Actions and participation of the Scientific Committee in RIPESS Europe
Dissemination of the International Solidarity Economy Manifesto. Academics and researchers from different continents (Africa, America, Asia, Europe) who have been working for a long time with solidarity economy practitioners have drafted and are working on the dissemination of the Manifesto to call on public authorities to support this emerging economy. It is also a tool to bring together more academics, PhD students and non-academics on the basis of a common need for knowledge production dedicated to the solidarity economy.

The Manifesto states that:

“The solidarity economy assumes social, ecological and cultural aims, against the increase of inequalities and for justice, against climate change and for an equitable sharing of resources, against the uniformisation of behaviours and for the expression of diversities. We need this economy for tomorrow, at a time when the exhaustion of the dominant system is evident. Economic science has developed from an epistemological basis that neglects natural resources as inexhaustible and privileges material interest as
the only motivation. […] Adjustments to the existing system are necessary but will not be sufficient. The experiences initiated by the solidarity economy are vectors of new relations between the economy and society in its human and non-human dimensions. The actors involved in the solidarity economy must be heard. The economy we need for tomorrow is already here. Its growth depends on the advent of a new generation of public action.”

The Manifesto is disseminated within the University by the members of the Scientific Committee (mainly in workshops), and in dedicated RIPESS Europe webinars. The member networks also ensure its publication in the national media.
The Manifesto is permanently available online at socioeco.org.

Webinar series
The Scientific Committee organises open webinars according to the themes under discussion.
Examples of objectives: To fertilise the field of investigation and exploration of RIPESS Europe members with themes still emerging in the SSE movement, in particular the feminist and decolonial perspective. To open up new avenues of research to cross with the more “traditional” literature on SSE; to propose research and debates on specific notions and concepts commonly used by introducing renewed analyses.

RIPESS Europe Newsletter
Members of the Scientific Committee regularly publish articles in the RIPESS Europe newsletter. This may be about the activities of the Scientific Committee, the work published by one of the members, a book or an article of interest to share.

Laura Aufrère

Laura Aufrère studied political sciences and worked for 10 years in the cultural field, including five years as a coordinator for the French confederation gathering performing/visual arts SSE initiatives (UFISC). She is now a phd student (CEPN – Paris 13) working on solidarity economy and commons in the artistic and cultural field (collective and commons initiatives, cooperation mechanisms, governance, social protection, social models of solidarity, economic models, etc).

Jean-Louis Laville

Jean-Louis Laville is a professor in Paris, at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (cnam), where he holds a Chair in Solidarity Economy, he is researcher at Lise (Interdisciplinary laboratory for economic sociology, CNRS-cnam) and IFRIS (Society Innovation Research Institute of Paris).

Involved in a lot of international research networks, he is the European coordinator for Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy, founding member of the European network EMES (which studies socio-economic realities such as third sector, non-profit organizations, voluntary sector, civil society organizations) and of the Latin-American network RILESS (Network of Latin-American Researchers in Social and Solidarity Economy).

He is a regular guest speaker at several universities (Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Quito, Louvain-la-Neuve, Porto Alegre, Salvador da Bahia…) and he is related to foreign research laboratories such as CRIDIS (Interdisciplinary Research Center, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) and CRISES (Interdisciplinary Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences, Montpellier, France).

Luciane Lucas Dos Santos

Luciane Lucas Dos Santos is a senior researcher at the centre for social studies, University of Coimbra, and a member of the study group on solidarity economy at CES (ECOSOL/CES). She was resarcher at the ALICE PROJECT – STRANGE MIRRORS, UNSUSPECTED LESSONS, an international project funded by the European Resarch Council, coordinated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Her resarch interests are: Postcolonial and decolonial studies on economics, feminist economics and feminist aesthetics, poverty and social inequalities from an interseccional perspective, Global South within Europe, indigenous and other economies.