CICS research team adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of cooperatives. We aspire to the highest academic standards and to engage in academic debates of international standing.
However, we are also concerned that our research and expertise should have practical relevance. To this end we engage with policy-makers and opinion-formers in Wales and the UK as a whole and endeavour to work in partnership with community-based practitioners, policy makers and academics. As part of our commitment to influence policy we are represented on the board of the Journal of Cooperative Studies.
Our research has and continues to develop around a number of broad themes:
Organisation, Identity, Structure and Management
This includes:
- governance issues
- social movements
- new, emerging and changing co-operative organisations
- values-led leadership and participation
Social, Public and Economic Policy
This includes
- Red-Green connections
- Mutuals and the credit crunch
- Mutualising public services
- Co-construction and co-production of social policy and social policy activity
Collaborative Projects – At Home and Abroad
This includes:
Connections with research colleagues in Canada and Europe
Growing Inequality and Social Innovation: Alternative Knowledge and Practice in Overcoming Social Exclusion in Europe’, the KATARSIS project involves WIRC and other European universities and has been funded under the EU’s Framework Programme 6.
Network for Sustainable Construction and the Built Environment, KEF project co-ordinated by Cardiff School of Architecture
Bio-regional economics
Sector Awareness and Development
This includes:
- Growing and strengthening the movement
- Contributions to learning and teaching (Masters in Social Entrepreneurship)
- Co-ordination of practitioner events, seminars and conferences
Contracted Research and Consultancy
(see also Professional Advisory & Consultancy)
This includes:
- Credit Unions Evaluation
- Social enterprises – health, housing, childcare
