The Social Economy Observatory 21, OES21
The Social Economy Observatory 21, OES21, an organism promoted by the Blanquerna foundation and Clade business group, was created in 2018 in order to provide the social economy sector with a new instrument. Essentially, OES21 is born with the mission to generate knowledge about social economy so that its positioning in society is enhanced. And ultimately, the observatory wants to bring the attention to the importance of social economy in the light of the challenges posed by the evolution of the economy and society nowadays. The project has a distinctive mission: to integrate all social and economic agents who support knowledge transfer to provide new contents through the analysis and research on social economy business, such as cooperatives, foundations or associations, all of which have a long-established tradition in Catalonia.
OES21 believes that the best way to accomplish its objectives is to adopt a long-term vision in order to identify the challenges faced by social economy beforehand, and, also, to advocate suggestions for dealing with the above challenges.
The Observatory has identified three main lines of work:
- To begin with, research is the main objective because it will allow OES21 to bring about knowledge regarding social economy. In light of this, the observatory will incorporate both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Eventually, however, the mission of OES21 is a prospective approach, that is to say, to focus primarily on anticipating challenges and development in the field of social economy, rather than to look into its past history. In any case, a meticulous anticipation ineluctably requires a deep understanding of the present and the recent past.
- Knowledge transfer is OES21’s second line of work. The concern is not so much what the observatory may discover, but rather how such knowledge may be used in social economy and in society as a whole. To that end, OES21 will establish regular and ad hoc channels of communication to report its conclusions. Therefore, OES21 will look for the cooperation and the complicity of other organizations and institutions, both in the context of social economy as well as in other fields, in order to enhance the impact of the observatory’s work.
- Finally, teaching, which is conceived as a complementary activity. OES21 believes that, although there is already a diverse and productive teaching offer it does not give up organizing regular or one-time training courses on interesting topics, either on its own or together with other organizations.
jserra@oes21.cat