The IICADD is pleased to be the local host of the 2024 Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Studies in Cooperation (CASC). The theme of the conference is “Sustaining Shared Futures : The Cooperative Way”. The conference will be held in conjunction with the 2024 Congress of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, at McGill University.

The conference kicks off with a Practice Day on June 11, with the aim of exploring the cooperative landscape in the Montreal region. Between June 12 and 14, numerous discussions will be held around the theme “Sustaining Shared Futures – The Cooperative Way”, with panels, roundtables and gatherings with sector specialists.

Among these events, the keynote lecture on June 12 will be held by Nathan Schneider, Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, on the theme “Extending our Shared Futures: A Horizon for the Co-operative Movement in the Digital Age”. The conference will be moderated by Rafael Ziegler, Director of IICADD at HEC Montréal.

The main conference on June 13 will be presented by Barbara Duroselle, Project Manager at TIESS (Territoires innovants en Économie sociale et solidaire) on the theme of “Social Enterprises and socio-Ecological Transitions”.

There will also be a round-table discussion on the morning of the 13th, on the theme “The Transformative Role of Cooperatives for a Just and Inclusive Circular Economy”, led by Rafael Ziegler, Justine Ballon, Assistant Professor at HEC Montréal and IICADD member, Martine Vézina Associate Professor in the Department of Management, Emmanuel Raufflet, Professor in the Department of Management at HEC Montréal, and other academic collaborators from the International Partnership for the Social Economy and Circular Economy. In the afternoon, a panel discussion featuring Justine Ballon, Martine Vézina and other experts will continue the exploration of the circular economy, this time at the intersection of governance and technology.

On June 14, under the theme “Democracy, digital transition and cooperatives”, PhD student and IICADD member Meaghan Girard, Rafael Ziegler, PhD student Alana Pierce and Jorge Mejia Morelos, Associate Professor in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department at HEC Montréal, will discuss “There’s not right answer here: The challenges of supporting social enterprises with digital business models in liminal spaces”, a two-year ethnographic study of a digital peer support pilot led by a key intermediary for cooperatives in Quebec.

On June 15, Gabriel Monette, IICADD member and lecturer in business ethics at HEC Montréal, along with Rafael Ziegler and Simon Pek, Associate Professor at the University of Victoria, will present “Freedom and Self-determination, the Cooperative Way”, a paper that presents a new framework for cooperative governance, drawing on the republican theory of freedom to address challenges such as organizational degeneration and member domination.

The Annual CASC Conference is also an opportunity to find out more about PortailCoop, the world’s largest digital library on cooperatives and mutuals. We’ll be there to answer all your questions!

    • Full program details: on the CASC website.
    • Register for Practice Day: To register, please send an email to institutcoop@hec.ca before May 15, 2024, with the subject line: CASC Practice Day 2024. Please note that places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
    • Find out more about the 2024 Congress of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and register, here.