Schools out for Summer!
In the last month I have been very fortunate to attend not one, but two Social Enterprise Summer schools. They were both really special experiences and really valuable. While a big part of me wishes I had done them earlier in my PhD journey, actually perhaps in hindsight they came just at the right time.
Completing a PhD has been one of the loneliest experiences of my life for a wide variety of reasons [starting in covid, proximity to campus, being a more ‘mature’ PhD candidate]. I thought I would find this amazing tribe that we would all go through this experience together. I can normally carve out a gang in the best of circumstances, but honestly, that has not been the case, and I’ve mostly battled it out on my own. My friends and family have been an amazing support but it’s not quite the same. That was one of the big reasons that I was looking forward to heading off to summer school and meeting other researchers and it definitely did not disappoint.
First up, I spent a week in Munich at TUM at Sophie Bacqs Social Entrepreneurship Doctoral Seminar. Of course, like so many scholars, I’ve read much of Sophies's thought-provoking research, so I was excited to spend a week under her guidance. Once I got over the shock of the pre-reading list (50 papers!), I found myself in a room with 9 other legends, mostly from Europe at various stages of their PhD and all researching different aspects of social enterprise. We had 10 sessions across the week, each one on a different aspect of social entrepreneurship research. We collectively discussed each topic using various publications as guides. It was such an interesting process and it really helped me to connect different research aspects and hugely elevated my holistic understanding of research in this field. I’ve always felt like a bit of an imposter researcher; the mindset shift required to move from practitioner to researcher is enormous - and I feel like this week really helped me bring it altogether (better late than never some would say!). Also, learning from everyone else in the room was an incredible opportunity; they were intimidatingly bright scholars, and I learned so much from each of them and made great friends.
Some key takeaways were:
Knowing the context of research is really important. There are so many different definitions of social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, scaling, social innovation etc etc. When reading research you need to be clear on what the researchers viewpoint is.
Keep reading, and read a wide range of research, not just in your area; it adds so much to your thinking
Be strategic about where you want to put your energy, and stay focused.
The road to publication is long and tough.
Find somewhere in Dublin that serves Illusionist purple Gin and lemon tonic because it’s amazing!
Back home for two weeks to furiously re-write my findings chapter (again) and then it was off beautiful Trento in Italy for the EMES Summer school. The title of the training school was - Developing transdisciplinary research capacities to advance the social enterprise field in the face of multidimensional crises. It was held in memory of the wonderful scholar Carlo Borgaza who passed earlier this year; whilst I never had the chance to meet Carlo in person, I have read much of his work, and it was a privilege to be able to honour his legacy. A group of PhD researchers and Early Career Researchers spent the week together, talking about our research and learning what is happening in the sector.
PhD researchers were grouped together, based on their area of research - I really liked that we stayed in the one group for all the presentations (rather than the usual conference style of hopping around). It meant you got to know people alot better (woop woop group 3) and had a chance to have more indepth discussions on your research. I really appreciated the opportunity to present my entire PhD research (in just 15 mins!) to the group, and have 45 mins to discuss afterwards - which again differs from the usual conference style where you present a paper and just a couple of minutes to discuss. The process of pulling the presentation together was very helpful to see does it make a cohesive, convincing story as a piece of research (still a work in progress it seems!).
Each day, there were panels of researchers discussing different topics, workshops, and group thinking sessions, so there was a lot to take in. I really took a lot out of the methodology sessions. My weakest area of understanding in research is methodology, so it's always helpful to see how more experienced researchers are approaching it and using different tools to overcome obstacles. You only ever hear these things in person. I have a notebook full of interesting insights from all the sessions I attended.
One stand-out session was by Anaís Perilleux (UCL, Belgium), who shared her research about the rebound effect of the shared economy. How actually, some platforms like Depop are boosting fast fashion because of over-consumption. How users are spending the money they make from selling their clothes might be worse for the environment because they just buy more fast fashion. However, this re-spending doesn’t happen when you use a charity shop because there is no re-spending effect as clothes are donated. There were similar interesting insights about car sharing and does that actually results in users reducing their car journeys, or increase them because it’s convenient. I immediately thought of how this research endorses the work of Irish social enterprise Thriftify, a digital platform that supports charity shops to sell online.
We also had the opportunity to visit a local social enterprise - Cooperativa La Rete - which was fantastic. We sat out in their (very hot) community garden, whilst hearing two talks, one on the logistics of the social enterprise and another on the social impact. Both very inspiring. The cooperative supports over 120 people through a huge range of programmes, supporting adults with disabilities. I loved that they work so hard to give their beneficiaries agency and choice in their life. There are a wide range of ongoing activities taking place so they participants can decide how they want to spend their time and build up their independence. The cooperative also sells their own produce and we had the chance to try their delicious apple juice at the end.
On our final evening, we visited another social enterprise, Kaire, which supports adults in having a second chance at life. After dinner, a dj appeared and although I can certainly say a disco in the Convent of San Bernardino was most definitely not on my bingo card for the night— I can confirm it was alot of fun and the EMES gang can throw some serious shapes on a dance floor.
For now, it’s back to the box room at home for the final stretch of my PhD.