In 2014, the CCR inaugurated its Young Scholars Programme (YSP) and since then the event has been held uninterruptedly. The objective of this Programme is to encourage and foster the professional development of young and emerging scholars of co-operative studies ranging across regions, economic industries/sectors, and academic disciplines. The program gives young scholars the opportunity to develop further knowledge and skills on current issues on Cooperatives as well as to give space for networking and exchange.
The structure of the programme is flexible, and it took the form of workshops, keynotes, or teamwork. It is a pre-conference event for YS participants in which they partake in conversations, exchanges, and workshops with seasoned co-operative researchers. These exchanges focus on myriad aspects of co-operative research from methodology, important emerging research topics, practitioner engagement and involvement, anchoring research in the actionable for co-operative enterprise, writing and publishing guidance, to mentorship connections, networking, and more. In some occasions, the YSP also included a best paper award, published in the CCR Review of International Co-operation or other publications.
The event is specifically designed for young scholars, in particular PhD students, whose own research deals with or touches upon cooperative topics, such as resilience and sustainability of current and new cooperative models, governance of cooperatives, cooperative identity, financial performance of cooperatives, and statistics and big data on cooperatives. In some occasions, participation in the YSP requires reading preparation in advance and active engagement with the work of others during the workshop, in order to use the workshop to advance our research.
The YSP is organised under the framework of the CCR global conferences, and the CCR-endorsed regional conferences. The YSP has grown significantly since its first edition, and we proudly held YSPs in all ICA CCR conferences around the world:
2022: ICA CCR European Research Conference, Athens, Greece
2021: ICA Cooperative Research Conference, Seoul, Korea
2019: ICA CCR Asia Pacific, Newcastle, Australia
2019: ICA CCR Africa, Kigali, Rwanda
2019: ICA CCR Europe, Berlin, Germany
2019: ICA CCR Global, Montreal, Canada
2018: ICA CCR Americas, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2018: ICA CCR Europe, Wageningen, The Netherlands
2017: ICA CCR Global and Europe, Stirling, Scotland, UK
2016: ICA CCR Europe, Almeria, Spain
2015: ICA CCR Global, Antalya, Turkey
2014: ICA CCR Global, Pula, Croatia
Participation has been usually supported with stipends, fee reductions, and/or fee waivers to support travel and accommodation of YSP participants to CCR conferences and events. In some occasions, the YSP also included a best paper award, remunerated on a scale with stipends.
