The LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research celebrates its 25th anniversary with the aim of continuing to expand the value and identity of cooperatives
The LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research celebrates its 25th anniversary with the aim of continuing to expand the value and identity of cooperatives
The LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research celebrates its 25th anniversary with the aim of continuing to expand the value and identity of cooperatives
A total of 120 people attended the event at IdeiEnea in Aretxabaleta. The research institute highlighted the work carried out in the last quarter of a century as well as challenges for the future.
The LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research held an event at IdeiEnea (in Aretxabaleta) to commemorate its quarter of a century of existence. The event was attended by 120 people, including LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research Director Ainara Udaondo, Mondragon University Rector Vicente Atxa, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences of Mondragon University Nagore Ipiña, and General Director of Laboral Kutxa Xabier Egibar.
Although its purpose was to recognize the work done over these years, the event also provided an opportunity to focus on future challenges. The importance of these challenges was underlined by Ipiña, who defined the event as “the memory of a community and a celebration of the future.”
Strengthening cooperativism and identity through education
The LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research was born 25 years ago out of the need to strengthen cooperativism, and it has been working in that direction for the last quarter of a century.
The research institute currently has two main objectives: first, to combine university knowledge with the practice of cooperatives, and second, to influence the local and external situation through cooperative education, research, consultancy and diffusion.
To achieve these objectives, the proximity of the research center to the cooperatives has been essential, as has the close relationship between LANKI and the cooperatives. As Udaondo pointed out, “at key moments for cooperatives, we have shed light through research, then have returned that to the cooperatives through education.”
In the same vein, Rector Vicente Atxa stated that “the greatest contribution” of the LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research “has been analyzing and rethinking the roots, values and meaning of cooperativism in a scientific and systematic way,” a vision with which Egibar agreed, stressing that, without research, cooperativism risks stagnation. “With research, however, it becomes a living project, capable of responding to present and future challenges,” he added.
Tribute to those who have been part of the project
In addition to highlighting future challenges for research, the event also served to pay tribute to and remember all the people who have been part of the LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research.
