News archive

• The Berkley Center's Annual Conference of Social Entrepreneurs

  Dr. Ana María Peredo was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the Berkley Center's Annual Conference of Social Entrepreneurs in New York University Stern School of Business on Nov 2, 2011. In her presentation she addressed how trying to understand the recent global economic crisis can remind us of some lessons we have been slow to learn about the real nature of economies. The conference brought together more than 300 leading experts from the public, non-profit, for-profit, and academic fields.

  While Ana Maria was visiting New York, she had an opportunity to meet members of the "Occupy" movement. An article detailing her experience was published in The Ring.

• BCICS is now CCCBE

  In October 2009 the centre was renamed "Centre for Co-operative and Community-Based Economy" (the old name being "British Columbia Institute for Co-operative Studes"). This new name not only reflects the natural breadth of our interest in co-operative and community-based ways of doing things, it is also a good way of recognizing our long-time interest in the diverse forms of co-operatives and other enterprises engaged in economic activities that provide for community needs.

• Congratulations and welcome 2011/2012 fellows

  

  We have a notable group of fellows at the CCCBE this year: Dr. Jo-Anne Lee, an Associate Professor in the Department of Women's Studies at UVic is joining as a faculty fellow. Our graduate fellows are Crystal Tremblay (Geography) and Tim Smith (Political Science). Jeanette Sheehy, Mark Reed, and Paula Johanson are community leaders who will be joining us as research fellows. We also have two visiting faculty fellows: Michela Giovannini, a PhD student at the School of Local Development and Global Dynamics at the University of Trento, Italy, and Chinosole, an emeritus faculty member from San Francisco State University. All of them are working in a range of sustainability issues from a community-based economic perspective. We are very much looking forward to supporting them and learning from their work!

  Interested in our fellowship program?

• 2011 SSHRC Congress in Fredericton: CCCBE symposium

  

  We started the summer with a CCCBE symposium at the 2011 SSHRC Congress. It was a great opportunity to present our collective work on theorizing about co-operative and community-based economy. Doctoral student Lisa Passolli presented her work on child care, Ben Geselbracht presented his work on youth at risk and community gardens, and Nick Montgomery shared some foundational work on understanding co-operatives as part of the CURA project with CCCA.

• Samoa Conference: "Tracing Footprints For Tomorrow: Past Lessons, Present Stories And Future Lives"

  

  Director Ana Maria Peredo was glad to have an opportunity to contribute to this conference and further her methodological thinking regarding community-based enterprise. It's great to learn that here is excitement among entrepreneurship colleagues from the Pacific South about engaging in community-based enterprise research.

• The Social Enterprise Forum 2011 in Melbourne

  

  In Australia our director, Dr. Ana Maria Peredo, presented two keynote addresses at the University of Melbourne. The event was a great success, bringing together over 150 practitioners from NGOs, government and academics. Dr. Peredo also had the opportunity to visit some local initiatives. One of the most remarkable was the CERES: a not-for-profit, environment, and education centre and urban farm located in Merri Creek in East Brunswick, Melbourne. They started out on a municipal wasteland where no one wanted to be and made it into a thriving, vibrant community with community gardens, markets, a bakery, and shops. They represent a pluralist and interdependent ecology of business.