About the Congress

The world has been facing a deep crisis for the past two years, linked to the Covid pandemic but also to accelerating techno-economic, social and environmental dynamics that were already well underway. Both phenomena, pandemic and major dynamics are irreversibly changing the world as we know it, generating impacts on an unprecedented scale. Public, social and cooperative enterprises, with their own values and missions, are providing highly innovative responses to these new issues and challenges.

The works of this 33rd CIRIEC Congress have a triple objective: firstly, to analyse these new technical-economic, social and environmental dynamics from the point of view of the opportunities they offer to the public economy and the social economy. Secondly, it aims to analyse the impact of the Covid crisis and of these dynamics on the social economy and the public sector in general. The third objective of the Congress is to analyse the concrete responses of public, social and cooperative enterprises to the social and health crisis and to these major dynamics, with particular reference to the new impetus given to the role of the State, both Welfare State and entrepreneurial, in this new Covid-era. Areas such as health and social services, employment, pensions, urban planning, housing, sustainable mobility, depopulation, ecological transition, essential services like water, energy and transport, as well as the digital transition, will be addressed through different papers and communications in the various sessions of the congress. New governance modes, in particular new partnerships between the public and the social economy, will also be the focus of attention.

Congress themes

1. New global dynamics of the public economy and the social economy in the post-Covid era
2. Support the welfare state: social and health services, employment and pensions
3. The new entrepreneurial state and the new modes of governance
4. Co-construction of local and territorial development: urban planning, depopulation, housing and sustainable mobility
5. Fair ecological transition and circular economy
6. New partnerships between the public economy and the social economy and new public policies
7. The social economy and the public economy in the face of growing inequalities.
8. Essential public services: energy, transport and water
9. Innovations and innovation systems of the public, social and cooperative economy
10. Organizational and action changes in the social economy and the public economy in the digital age

Congress objectives and invitation to participate

1. Bringing together researchers, governments’ representatives and professionals of the social economy and the public sector coming from different parts of the world in a forum for information exchange, reflection and debate of proposals.
2. Encouraging collaborative research between researchers, public administrations’ delegates and professionals from the social economy and the public economy.

Researchers, professionals from the sector and government representatives are invited to participate in the congress.