Nonprofit Economics

Sponsor: ERC - Horizon
Promoter: Marthe Nyssens
Start date: 2025
End date: 2029

Project description

Running from March 2025 to February 2029, this research and innovation EU Horizon project brings together 13 partners from 8 countries. It aims to uncover the organisational and ecosystem factors that make WISEs “inclusive and sustainable by design”, and to develop supportive multi-level policy frameworks. 
https://www.wiseshiftproject.eu

Sponsor: INNOVIRIS

Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux

Start date: 2025

End date: 2028

Project description

The project “SCALA LEGAL” aims to understand the mechanisms of sustainability and scaling up of the social innovation developed by Casa Legal to improve the defense and support of litigants. Casa Legal, the first non-profit organization in Belgium to integrate an interdisciplinary approach into legal aid, is facing significant demand that cannot be met with current resources. The ultimate goal is to sustain and expand this innovative model in order to improve access to justice and provide litigants with comprehensive, holistic support.

• Sponsor: FWO
• Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
• IRES Researcher: Jozef Cossey
• Start date: 2020
• End date: 2024

Project description

The purpose of this thesis is to challenge the taken for granted belief that efforts to address environmental degradation at the firm-level are inherently good or beneficial. The focus on potential, unintended consequences of firm actions throughout this PhD seeks to complement existing discussions in the literature focused on corporate ecological inaction and greenwashing.  

To this end, this dissertation draws on the concept of policy resistance as an overarching concept for several mechanisms that try to explain the often counterintuitive results of well-intentioned interventions. Consequently, this dissertation focuses empirically on companies that explicitly seek to address environmental degradation through their economic activities, a type of venturing that is often denoted as environmental entrepreneurship. 

• Sponsor: Walloon Region
• Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
• IRES Researcher: Coralie Helleputte
• Start date: September 2023
• End date: September 2025

Project description 

The Chair in Social Economy (chairES) at UCLouvain is one of four chairES (ULiège, UMONS, ULB and UCLouvain) supported by the Walloon Region between 2022 and 2025 to conduct transdisciplinary research in social economy, in close connection with the ecosystem of social enterprises in the Walloon Region and Brussels. 
More precisely the two objectives of this Chaire is:

a) To strengthen the University's ability to respond, through its research, teaching and ecosystem support activities, to the issues raised by the growth of the social economy theme; 

b) To consolidate the legitimacy of social enterprise models in the region's economic landscape, given the potential of this type of enterprise to respond to societal challenges. 

• Sponsor: Walloon Region
• Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
• IRES researcher: Zoé Debroeyer
• Start Date: October 2023
• End date: September 2027

Project description

The PhD thesis examines the organizational resilience of Social Economy (SE) organizations. Specifically, it aims to understand the mechanisms and tools these organizations implement to adapt and navigate crises and periods of uncertainty. The first part will focus on the relationship between the unique characteristics of SE organizations and their resilience mechanisms. The second part will involve comparative analyses with organizations in the conventional economy. By employing mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative), the PhD seeks to ground itself in practical fieldwork to address the current challenges faced by SE organizations. 

• Sponsor: FNRS
• Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
• Start date: September 2024
• End date: September 2026

Project description

In the face of the multiplicity of crises, a variety of work has leveraged the concepts on and around the commons to bring a commons fix to capitalism, of which commoning has been presented as a solution. Commoning is concerned with the way civil society organizes and creates organizations to support the development of collaborative communities governing commons. In doing so, commoning makes space for alternative governance practices to develop new social production and organization modes, and reduce social inequalities. Yet, literature has shown that commoning practices are hindered by tensions. In this research project, we wish to focus on the governance mechanisms developed through commoning practices so to reduce group tensions. We take the case of squats as extreme cases of urban commons. Indeed, through their anti-market nature and often illegal settings, squats intend to reclaim the commons, reduce inequalities, and target decommodification.