The Committee on Co-operative Research (CCR) – a thematic committee of the International Co-operative Alliance – and the International Labour Organization co-hosted  co-hosting the 2015 International Research Conference in Antalya, Turkey on 8-10 November 2015.  The conference brought together researchers, students, practitioners, advocates, policy makers, and representatives of co-operatives and employers and workers' organizations involved with co-operative enterprises, social/solidarity economy organizations, and world of work issues.

The Committee received more than 150 responses to the Call for Papers, which sought proposals exploring areas of job creation, rights at work, social protection, and social dialogue, among others.  Interest in the conference came from around the world, with a large number of submissions from Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.  A total of 112 participants from 26 countries attended the conference, many of them presenting papers.

There were six sets of parallel sessions, with three to five sessions in each of the six time slots. They will cover a wide range of themes  including: co-operative and labour legislation, worker co-operatives and trade union relations, gender equality and women's empowerment, among others. The closing session will include highlights from each of the themes discussed during the conference. A number of publications on the conference will also follow based on select presentations.

The session on November 8 was specifically aimed at emerging co-operative researchers. This Young Scholars Programme was made possible through the generous support of the International Summit of Cooperatives. The next Summit will take place in Quebec City in October 2016.

Co-operative News reports about the conference:

• Eight tips for emerging co-operative research scholars
• Explaining co-operative performance: from neo-classical to behavioural economics
• How can co-operatives contribute to the future of work?
• Co-operatives and the World of Work: Youth (Blog post by Betsy Dribben)
• Co-operatives and prison systems (Blog post by Betsy Dribben)
• Co-operatives are contributing to the world of work (article in International Co-operative Alliance e-Digest)

Visit our conference photo gallery!

Presentations and papers

9 November 2015

• Opening remarks by Numan Özcan, Director, Country Office for Turkey, International Labour Organization
• Keynote address by Jürgen Schwettmann:  Co-operatives and the future of work

Session 1.1: Co-operatives and Sustainable Development

• Marina Monaco, Gianluca Pastorelli: Before and after social innovation; Co-operatives offer sustainability  (Presentation)
• Jürgen Schwettmann:  The role of co-operatives in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals -- the economic dimension (Paper)

Session 1.2: Co-operatives and innovation

• Regina Galhardi, Amber van Dessel: ILO mapping exercise on statistics on co-operatives (Presentation)
• Lenore Matthew: Global mapping of the provision of care through co-operatives: preliminary findings (Presentation)

Session 1.3: Co-operatives and employment creation

• Sinem Bayraktar: Role of co-operatives in combatting child labour in seasonal agricultural work
• - Presentation / Paper
• Yena Lee,  Yunhwan Nam, Sanghoon Lee: The role and strategy for  community association of co-operatives as the secondary organization - Case of Guro Community Association of Co-operatives (Paper)
• Cahyani Puspitasari Dewi: Habitus of Indonesian youth in getting involved in co-operatives (Paper)

Session 1.4: Co-operatives and trade unions

• Minsun Ji: Reform or Revolution: Union-co-operative partnerships in the U.S. and South Korea (Paper)
• Sabina  Breveglieri: Which role for trade unions in the promotion of Social and Solidarity Economy for the creation of decent work: Lessons learnt and challenging issues (Paper)
• Larry Haiven: The Workers United: Interaction among the variety of collectivities (Presentation)

Session 1.5: Gender equality and women's empowerment in co-operatives

• Sonia Maria Dias and Ana Carolina Ogando: Engendering waste pickers' co-operatives in Brazil
• - Presentation / Paper
• Sudha Kornginnaya: Women’s empowerment through participatory strategies: a study  (Paper)
• Gisaro Ya-Bititi: Coffee co-operatives and women’s empowerment in Rwanda's rural areas: A case study of KOAKAKA Coffee Cooperative in Rwanda (Paper)
• Fiona Duguid, Nadya Weber:  Women and co-operatives: Gender equality and women's empowerment  (Presentation)

Session 2.1: Co-operatives and trade unions

• Esther N. Gicheru: The historical relations between consumer co-operatives and the labour movement in Kenya
• - Presentation / Paper
• Maria Monaco, Gianluca Pastorelli: Win-Win trade unions and worker co-operatives (Paper)
• Akira Kurimoto: Co-operatives and trade unions: from occasional partners to builders of solidarity-based society (Paper)

Session 2.2: Co-operatives and innovation

• Marcelo Vieta, Mümtaz Derya Tarhan, Fiona Duguid: From collective to co-operative entrepreneurship in Canada’s new co-operatives (Paper)

Session 2.3: Co-operatives and employment

• Hyungsik Eum: Work and co-operative experience in co-operatives based on worker ownership (Paper)

Session 2.4: Gender equality and women's empowerment in co-operatives

• Nilay Özlem Kiyak :Women’s co-operatives in social and economic development (Paper)
• Carla Dohmwirth,  Markus Hanisch: Dairy co-operatives and women's empowerment, lessons from Karnataka (Paper)

Session 3.1: Co-operatives and trade unions

• Cilla Ross, Gareth Young: Co-operatives, trade unions and decent work: learning and working together (Paper)
• Mary Hoyer: The power of collaboration: Labour unions and worker co-ops in the U.S. (Paper)
• Özge Berber-Agtaş: Protecting the rights of domestic workers in Turkey through co-operatives and/or trade unions (Presentation)

Session 3.2: Labour law and co-operative law

• Claudia Sanchez Bajo: Analysis of the ILO notion of work related to that of co-operatives (Paper)
• Gemma Fajardo-García: Proposals for better governance in worker co-operatives (Paper)

Keynote address by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker: The role of co-operatives in Cuba's new economy

• Presentation / Video

10 November 2015

Session 4.1: Multi-stakeholder and worker co-operatives

• Dietmar Roessl, Stefan Radakovics, Markus Thiemer, Katie Hyslop: The employees' awareness of co-operative principles -- Results of an empirical survey of employees working in Austrian credit co-operatives
• - Presentation / Paper
• Andrew Bibby: Co-operatives with multi-stakeholder membership: learning from the past
• - Presentation / Paper
• Sonja Novkovic: Multi-stakeholder co-operatives, socialism and solidarity (Presentation)

Session 4.2: Labour law and co-operative law

• Burçin Başaran, Mustafa Kara: Contribution of co-operatives to the determination of regulations on co-operatives: case of Tekirdağ Province regional associations (Paper)
• Aitor Bengoetxea Alkorta: Employment in worker co-operatives
• - Presentation / Paper
• Manuel García Jiménez: The autonomy or hereonomy of co-operative work (Paper)

Session 4.3: Co-operatives and innovation

• Joanna Brzozowska-Wabik: The phenomenon of the revival of a co-operative idea in Poland  (Paper)
• Anu Puusa, Kirsi Hokkila: Self-employment in a worker co-operative: Finding a balance between individual and community needs
• - Presentation / Paper

Session 4.4: Co-operatives and organizational change

• Jong Ho Won, Seungkwon Jang: Becoming a co-operative with self-organizing process: the case of Happy Bridge Co-operative (Paper)
• Kim Hwalshin: A worker-owned firm’s organizational change from the perspective of organizational learning: The case of Woojin Traffic (Paper)
• Yifat Solel: Re-conceptualizing 'The Worker':  Workers' co-operatives and unions fighting the new-old struggle for basic workers' rights in an age of out-sourcing and forced free-lance employment (Paper)

Session 5.2: Rural co-operatives

• Graeme Reed: Social networks, agricultural innovation and co-operatives in the Niayes Region of Senegal (Presentation)
• Mustafa Kara,  Recep Yücel, Pınar Kara Dinçer: Analysis for activities of the agricultural co-operatives and their members' expectations  (Paper)

Session 5.3: Worker co-operatives

• Paola Raffaelli: Worker co-operatives and neoliberal economy: transformative or palliative? The Argentine case (Paper)
• Marcelo Vieta: Saving jobs and businesses in times of crisis: the Italian road to creating worker co-operatives from workers buyouts (Paper)
• Virginie Pérotin: What do we really know about workers' co-operatives (Paper)

Session 5.4: Co-operatives and employment creation

• Nursel Durmaz, Bilge Pınar Yenigün: Informality in co-operatives for Turkey: Are they reducing the level of internal employment? (Paper)
• Jeremiah Nyatichi: Co-operatives and employment creation: the Kenyan case (Paper)
• Ivana Catturani, Millán Díaz-Foncea: The determinants of co-operative employment (Paper)

Session 6.1: Assessing the impact of co-operatives

• Abed Yasin: Relevancy analyses in co-operatives: a guiding material for co-operatives' assessment  (Paper)
• Uttam Kumar Saikia: Rural development through co-operative banks: Achievements and hindrances in Skkim, India (paper)

Session 6.2: Practitioners’ session on South-South and Triangular Co-operation (Co-operatives and Social and Solidarity Economy)

• Anita Amorim:  Linkages between SSE, co-operatives and SSTC from an ILO perspective
• - Presentation / Paper
• Sonia Maria Dias: Social and solidarity economy and co-operativism in Wiego: Networking as a means to engage in solidarity networks (Presentation)