Scientists and representatives from the field of social entrepreneurship worked on questions and challenges of different subfields of social enterprise research from September 11 to 14.
From September 11 to 14, 2023 the 9th international EMES conference took place at Frankfurt UAS. Organized in collaboration with the Competence Center for Social Intervention Research (KomSI) at Frankfurt UAS, the event was titled "Act locally, change globally – social enterprises and cooperatives for a more resilient economy and society" and gave scholars the opportunity to highlight synergies between different subfields within social enterprise research and to initiate critical debates between different research communities. The conference was opened by Prof. Dr. Susanne Rägle, Vice President for Research and Transfer, Dr. Renate Sterzel, city councilor from Frankfurt am Main, Prof. Dr. Taco Brandsen, President of EMES, and the local EMES chairs Prof. Dr. Helen Schneider and Prof. Dr. Nicole Göler von Ravensburg.
The Practice-Science Day (also called Transdisciplinary Forum) on the first day was attended by more than 60 representatives from networks, associations, ecosystem organizations, social enterprises and cooperatives in the region, as well as 200 international scientists. In total, representatives from 40 different countries participated in the conference with 170 presenting papers and 64 parallel sessions. In addition, there were four plenary sessions with keynotes from e. g. State Secretary Sven Giegold, Sarah de Heusch, CEO of Social and Solidarity Economy Europe, Ilcheong Yi, United Nations Task Force on the Social and Soidarity Economy, and six others. During the conference dinner, six founding members of the EMES network were honored for 20 years of scientific work on social enterprises. At the closing event, prizes were awarded to the five best scientific contributions.
"The mix on the first day was excellent; the exchange of impulses between practice and science was also very stimulating and on a good level from technically sound, but not too detailed, so that one could learn well from each other," said a practice representative looking back on the conference.
One of the scientists said, "We had a very good time overall, both as presenters and as listeners. At this point I would like to thank you again for the conference. We were able to take away a lot in terms of content and, due to the interpersonal appreciative atmosphere, we left Frankfurt with a very good feeling. I am looking forward to hopefully meeting soon and to a further exchange!"
"Thank you very much for the invitation and the great opportunity to meet you and other colleagues. The conference was very good, and it was the first conference where I didn't fall asleep. And thank you for facilitating the session, and I am honored to be with you and other panelists," was the voice of a policymaker who also attended the conference.
For more information around the EMES network, visit www.emes.net: for more on KomSI at Frankfurt UAS, visit www.frankfurt-university.de/komsi.