Stakeholder Brief #3 | Towards an international typology of social enterprise models: Progress, perspectives and common trends

This Stakeholder Brief provides an overview of the main topics discussed in the COST Empower-SE meeting in Budapest, “Towards an international typology of social enterprise models: Progress, perspectives and common trends”. The goal of this meeting was to bring together Hungarian SE researchers, other stakeholders of the Hungarian SE field and researchers of the COST Empower-SE network. Innovative conference networking formats provided a space for discussion about social enterprise research in Hungary and in other parts of Europe. The comparison between the social enterprise fields of various European countries reaffirmed that the historical developments and institutional contexts greatly influence the SE fields across Europe.

The second scientific meeting of the Working Group on the theoretical foundations of social enterprise (WG1 “Foundations”) was co-organized by the Corvinus University of Budapest (CUB) and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (CERS HAS) on January 16 and 17, 2019. The meeting had three main objectives. The first objective was to provide a space for authors participating in the COST Empower-SE network to demonstrate the progress they had made since the first WG1 meeting in Lisbon in developing their country contributions. The second objective of the event was to provide a space for discussion on newly emerging transversal chapters and chapters utilizing the ICSEM database. The third objective of the event was to provide opportunities for networking between Hungarian SE scholars, policy-makers, representatives of social enterprises and researchers of the COST Empower-SE network. Innovative conference networking formats—such as a stakeholder panel, a scientific pitching and poster session, as well as a World Café with six tables—provided a space for interactive exchanges between the various stakeholders.

In line with the triple goal of the meeting, this stakeholder brief gives an overview of current research on social enterprise in Hungary and of the contextual diversity of the SE field in Europe through highlighting the two WG1 panel sessions.