MCAC
Mondragón: Cooperative Academic Community
The Mondragon Cooperative Experience has successfully integrated the cooperative model within the demands of the competitive economic environment. This has made it a centre of interest and study for numerous specialists and researchers who are concerned with a desire for more democratic, participative ways of performing business, as a means towards creating a fairer, more solidarity-orientated society.
Over the years, many lecturers and researchers have studied and published papers on the Mondragon Cooperative Experience. It is also an object of study as part of degree and postgraduate courses in universities all over the world.
Generating new knowledge on the cooperative company, and transmission of this knowledge, should be given its due importance at our universities. The growing significance of cooperatives, their increasing proliferation and the importance of their varied presence in different economic sectors means greater attention must be given to them with regard to university studies and research activity carried out in different university departments.
The aim of our project is to synthesise and vitalise the concern for promoting a fairer and more democratic method of performing business; a concern we share with many people from the academic sphere on a world level. We wish the community we put forward to serve as a link for alliance and cooperation on a worldwide basis, set apart by its global vision.
MISSION STATEMENT
- As an academic community, we wish to be a world reference point for training, research and dissemination of information and knowledge on the Mondragon Cooperative Experience, and consequently on cooperativism in general.
AIMS
MCAC is a global academic community whose aims are to:
a) Create, manage, transmit and disseminate knowledge and skills connected with the Mondragon Cooperative Experience on a world level.
b) Perform and sponsor research and scientific studies on the Mondragon Cooperative Experience from and between the different fields or areas of knowledge (economics, management, sociology, law, anthropology, psychology, history, labour relations, etc.).
c) Promote communication on and between the different cooperativism experiences existing in the world and at different points in history, so that they may be of use for mutual learning.
d) Structure the existing relationship and synergies, enabling ideas to be more easily shared between different areas and specialities.
e) Structure the experiences from all over the world in this field (both the industrialised and the non-industrialised world), so that both of them may benefit with a view to the worldwide spread of cooperativism.
f) Serve as a point of encounter and contact for experts and scientists from the entire academic world, organising and promoting debate forums, discussions, scientific meetings, etc. on the different aspects and areas (individual, specific and general) of the Mondragon Cooperative Experience.
g) Encourage professional and academic tuition (masters, doctor’s degrees, etc.) and non-academic training (courses, workshops, etc.) for people and organisations interested in creating cooperatives on a worldwide basis.
h) Create a data and documentation centre with a reference library that can be used by anyone studying or working on the issue and visited by researchers from all over the world.
LINES OF ACTION
Our plan of action for fulfilling these aims is as follows:
- To hold regular academic meetings and conferences that will be published on this web site.
- To implement a Programme for visiting lecturers, aimed at Community members wishing to make a teaching or research visit within the lines and areas defined.
- To implement a scholarship programme for the preparation of doctoral theses in the lines and areas defined.
- To promote excellence in postgraduate training and research, particularly that relating to the Mondragon Cooperative Experience.
- To create an economic and financial database of cooperatives to aid in carrying out research projects in the areas defined.
- To create an international scientific magazine.
SPONSORING AND COLLABORATING INSTITUTIONS
Sponsoring institution: Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa
The MCAC seeks direct or indirect collaboration and the greatest possible representation from the bodies, institutions and organisations who work on promoting cooperativism.
NEW MEMBERS
If you wish to become a member of the Mondragón Cooperative Academic Community, please send an e-mail to: