For the eleventh time, in accordance with the long tradition, the National Social Economy Meetings – OSES 2018 took place. The conference, under the slogan “New trends in the social economy”, took place on October 15, 2018 in the Krakow Garden of Arts. This year, the event gathered almost 200 participants – representatives of social economy entities, officials dealing with ES issues, social politicians, journalists, scientists and students. As always, OSES was organized from the inspiration of the Permanent Social Economy Conference (SKES), and the organizational office ran the Lustration Labor Cooperative Association (ZLSP) this year. XI OSES was opened by SKES chairman Henryk Wujec. After him, Janusz Paszkowski – the president of ZLSP and Kuba Wygnański – asked Janusz Paszkowski, who was bowing and quite bitterly summarizing the implementation of the ES Manifesto adopted 10 years ago at I OSES in Krakow.
We started with a high lecture introducing “The transition from the opportunistic to the relational market game – towards the economics of values” delivered by prof. Jerzy Hausner from the University of Economics in Krakow, former Minister of Labor, Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister. Later, a film by MEP (former Minister of Labor and Chief Strategic Advisers, Prime Minister Michał Boni on how the robotics changes human work) was presented in the last part by Diana Dovgan, Secretary General of CECOP-CICOPA Europe – one of the largest headquarters of European labor cooperatives , which spoke about trends and challenges for labor co-operatives and social cooperatives in Europe.
In the afternoon part of the meeting there were four speeches, which were related by a common slogan: Social Entrepreneurship – we are connected by innovations! On behalf of the honorary patron of the event of the Ministry of Investment and Development, Aleksandra Dmitruk, deputy director of the ESF Department, spoke about the practical, ministerial look at social innovation. Katarzyna Binda from FISE and Ewa Furgał – Innowatorka talked about Transfer HUB – a project supporting micro innovations that help in solving social problems. Joanna Wardzińska, vice president of TISE, in an interview with the participants, tried to answer the question: “Does the social economy need innovative financial mechanisms” and talk about these mechanisms (social bonds, social venture capital, loans). Nina Bąk from the Food Cooperative “Well” and Janusz Paszkowski, – the president of ZLSP discussed the tradition and emerging trends (eg food cooperatives), and Antoni Sobolewski from the Time Space Identity Association wondered how eS can support revitalization processes. Both parts of the meeting were summarized by Paweł Chorąży, until recently deputy Minister of Investment and Development, and previously a long-term director of the ESF department, and the meeting ended with recommendations for the future, which was delivered by Tomasz Schimanek from the Philanthropy Development Academy. And then there was a joint dinner prepared by the Social Equality Cooperative from Krakow. During the meeting, we also drank several hundred liters of Muszynianka mineral water produced by the cooperative Labor Cooperative Muszynianka, which was also the sponsor of our event. After the official part, all guests were invited to the Gala of the Competition. Jacek Kuroń on Social Enterprise of the Year. The competition is organized from the very beginning by the FISE Foundation, and TISE joins the auditing work and funds some of the prizes. This year, to our joy, the Main Award went to the social enterprise Gospoda Jaskółeczka from Radom, our multi-loan (for seven years!), client. Of course, we would like to congratulate all the winners, whose full list can be found here: https://www.konkurs-es.org/