Rationale

After five successful editions of the EMES PhD Summer Schools, at University of Corsica (France) in 2008; Roskilde University (Denmark) in 2010; the University of Trento (Italy) in 2012, the West University of Timișoara (Romania) in 2014; the Glasgow Caledonian University in Glasgow (UK) in 2016; the sixth edition will be held at Marseille from 19-22 June 2018.

Some 150 students and 70 researchers from over 35 countries have participated in these unique learning events. PhDs constitute a central part of EMES as shown by the special membership category for PhD students, the seat reserved for PhD students in the EMES Board of Directors, and various concrete outputs. Some of these outputs include: the publication of a PhD Reader, the launching of an EMES PhD Student Network in 2008, the creation of the dedicated EMES Junior Experts Blog in 2011, the creation of an active Facebook group, and recently the EMES Alumni Network.

This edition counts with the support of the pan-European intergovernmental framework COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). The mission of COST is to enable break-through scientific and technological developments leading to new concepts and products and thereby contribute to strengthening Europe’s research and innovation capacities. The specific Action 16206 supporting this training school is “Empowering the next generation of social enterprise scholars” (EMPOWER-SE) which includes numerous Early Career Investigators and PhDs. COST Training Schools provide intensive training in emerging research topics within the laboratories and organisations involved in the EMPOWER-SE Action, such as LEST.

Social enterprises are developing rapidly, in Europe as in the rest of the world. Enterprises that combine social purpose and economic efficiency are characterized by specific governance structures and profit redistribution rules. These organizational forms attract more and more entrepreneurs wishing to give their contribution to solve important social or environmental issues.

Beyond these common characteristics, social enterprises are heterogeneous as far as their activity sector, size and legal form are concerned. They also follow different institutionalization paths, in deep connection with the traditions and evolutions of their national contexts. The recent and fast development of social enterprises raises several questions for researchers and PhD students at the heart of the EMES, LEST and EMPOWER-SE work: how to understand their heterogeneity and allow for international comparison? How to learn from different case studies and go a step further toward generalization? How do they interact with public authorities and/or with the market? How to measure their performance and their social impact by comparison with other public or private organizations?

From this perspective, three major thematic axes will be dealt in depth. The first axis will concern epistemological issues related to the choice of the epistemological framework and its methodological consequences. The second axis will discuss mixed methods that are more and more used but that raise the question of how to combine different methods (qualitative and quantitative) while keeping the research coherence. The third axis will deal with international comparison methods to develop a reflexive and critical analysis of comparison methods that currently coexist.

PhD students, early-career investigators, and researchers coming from different disciplinary backgrounds (such as sociology, management, economics, political sciences, law, anthropology, geography, etc.) whose research projects are connected to this field are welcome to apply for this training school.

In this context, EMES and LEST jointly organise the 6th EMES Training School aimed at researchers and PhD students who conduct research in the wide fields of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise, social economy and solidarity economy and are interested in epistemological and methodological. With this event, EMES and LEST aim to:

• Emphasize the research design, epistemology and methodology involved in any research project, specifically in a doctoral path;
• Strengthen the interdisciplinary dialogue in the fields of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise, social economy and solidarity economy;
• Strengthen the training of PhD students by means of methodological and theoretical lectures, debates, and professional and social media workshops;
• Provide personalised feedback and support via well-supported small group discussion sessions on participants’ research projects, their research questions, approaches and theoretical understandings; more precisely, in addition to various opportunities of informal discussion, at least a full hour will be devoted to every student’s research project within group sessions (for presentation by the student, feed-back by professors and their peers, discussion and synthesis of recommendations);
• Provide space for social and intellectual discussion so that doctoral students will have ample opportunity to establish and expand their own peer networks and benefit from contacts and feedback from established scholars;
• Encourage a broad and diverse range of participants, since exchanges between researchers from different countries, continents, cultures and academic disciplines can support stimulating and fertile reflections on research approaches.

This edition counts with the support of the pan-European intergovernmental framework COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). The mission of COST is to enable break-through scientific and technological developments leading to new concepts and products and thereby contribute to strengthening Europe’s research and innovation capacities. The specific Action 16206 supporting this training school is “Empowering the next generation of social enterprise scholars” (EMPOWER-SE) which includes numerous Early Career Investigators and PhDs. COST Training Schools provide intensive training in emerging research topics within the laboratories and organisations involved in the EMPOWER-SE Action, such as LEST.