Article from RIPESS Europe
Josette Combes, Bruno Lasnier and Jason Nardi (MES France and Ripess Europe) will participate in the one-day meeting organized at Paris 8 University on January 18, 2023 by the UCOOP network, a network of student cooperatives. One of the objectives of the meeting is to discuss the Coop4Futur project with all the universities involved in UCOOP.
The UCOOP network (Universities of Poitiers, Montpellier, Gustave Eiffel, Paris 8, UHA and Science Po Bordeaux) was founded in 2021 by 6 student cooperatives within the Réseau Inter-Universitaire de l’ESS (RIUESS). It has no legal structure, it is simply a gathering of actors that aims to carry a political message. Half of the student cooperatives make it possible to implement projects, the other half is on consulting missions.. What brings together all the projects is the university training in collective entrepreneurship (the student as an actor of its training, appropriation of new innovative legal forms).
You will find on socioeco.org, the Manifesto of the Inter-University Network of Student Cooperatives (in French), as well as descriptions of the student cooperatives that founded Ucoop. Also in relation on socioeco.org, with the possible role of universities in supporting the creation of cooperatives, you can refer to the keyword “University incubators of the SSE“. This practice is especially present in Brazilian universities: the technological incubators of popular cooperatives aim to support the formation and development of popular cooperatives and solidarity economy enterprises in neighborhoods or rural areas that are often marginalized. They were part of an important program of SENAES, the Secretariat of Solidarity Economy of Brazil, abolished under Bolsonaro and which we hope to see restored with the return of President Lula.
See also the article of the RIPESS Europe newsletter of December 2021: Launch of ACC’ESS, a student cooperative, by Martin Georges.
