Visions 4 a Cooperative Future: Cooperativism for the 21st Century Europe & Beyond

 

International Interdisciplinary Conference on Cooperativism in the 21st Century Europe

December 4-6, 2014, Bratislava, Slovakia

Conference venue: Kongresové a vzdelávacie centrum ÚVS, Bratislava, Kramáre (http://www.uvs.sk)

How to get to the conference venue

 

Conference Program:

 

4th of December 2014 (Guests and Abstracts)

 

12:00 – 12:30 Registration

 

12:30 – 14:00 Why Cooperativism? (opening roundtable discussion)

What is cooperativism, what are the forms and practices of various cooperative actions and how can they address problems European society is facing in these times of turbulent shifts in the global power distribution and social, economic and environmental crisis?

 

Participants: Darina Zaimova (Bulgaria), Tarcisio Tamarosi (Brasil), Michal Polák (Slovakia), Erika Kármán (Hungary), Anna Horváth (Hungary), Ľuboš Blaha (Slovakia), Ilona Švihlíková (Czech Republic), Peter Vittek (Slovakia)

 

14:00 – 14:15 Break

 

14:15 – 15:15 Roundtable Continuation and Plenary Discussion

 

15:15 – 15:30 Break

 

15:30 – 17:30 Tradition and the Present Time (presentations 20 min each and discussion)

 

  • The charms and perils of cooperative enterprise, Jana Lindbloom

  • The co-operative archipelago in the Czech Republic, Jiří Guth

  • The tradition and contemporary situation of Polish co-operative movement, Zofia Chyra-Rolicz

  • Reviving co-op tradition in the post-socialist Balkan countries, Darina Zaimova, Milos Colic, Ana Petrovic, Anelia Vateva, Asya Mileva

 

5th of December 2014 (Guests)

 

10:00 – 11:45 Inclusive Local Economies through Cooperatives Development (INECON project presentation)

Presentations on cooperativism in their V4 countries, conducted research, problems of cooperatives, best practices and legislative issues in V4 region followed by a discussion.

 

Participants:

Hungary: Erika Kármán, Attila Katona

Czech Republic: Ilona Švihlíková, Magalena Hunčová

Poland: Dominika Potkanska

Slovakia: Eva Riečanská, Mária Nemcová, Martin Hadbavný

 

11:45 – 12:00 Break

 

12:00 – 13:45 INECON presentation continuation

 

13:45 – 14:45 Lunch

 

14:45 – 15:30 How Can ICT Foster Cooperativism (Job'N'Coop mobile phone application presentation)

 

  • From competition to cooperation: bringing back humankind to its natural evolutionary pathway through ICT, Doruk Salor, Celik Gumusdag

 

15:30 – 15:45 Break

 

15:45 – 17:30 Cooperative and Social Economy in Practice (roundtable and plenary discussion)

What challenges do cooperative and social businesses encounter in practice? Practitioners and researchers will talk about their experiences and everyday situations that they face.

 

Participants: Zoltán Erdős, Erika Kármán, Petr Jelínek, Markéta Vinkelhoferová, Jiří Guth, Tarcisio Tamarosi

 

6th of December 2014 (Gests and Abstracts)

 

9:30 – 11:00 Cooperative Rural Development (presentations 20 minutes each and discussion)

 

  • Rural areas and innovation: the collaborative action and potential of academia and business to strengthen cooperative development across Europe, Darina Zaimova, Cynthia Giagnocavo and Yuliana Yarkova

  • Cooperatives and the family farm: in-between markets and family ties, Cynthia Giagnocavo, Darina Zaimova and Emilio Galdeano-Gomes

  • Contributation of LEADER programme to sustainable rural development, Julia Doitchinova, Mary O'Shaughnessy, Emilio Galdeano-Gomes

 

11:00 – 13:15 Cooperatives, Social Economy and Democracy (presentations 20 minutes each and discussion)

 

  • The deleterious effects of "agora ostracism" in cooperatives, Theo Benos, Nikos Kalogeras, Paulina Papastathopoulou, Ko de Ruyter, Martin Wetzels

 

11:30 – 11:45 Break 

 

  • Cooperative as a social enterprise playing a significant role in social economy, Markéta Vinkelhoferová

  • Six necessary components for successful workplace democracy, Paul Bernstein

  • Cooperation without cooperatives: various types of social or community-based enterprises in a rural region – a case study from South Bohemia, Jiří Guth

 

13:15 – 14:15 Lunch

 

14:15 – 16:30 What is the Future of Cooperativism? (open space discussion)