The 5th Africa Young Scholars Workshop on Cooperatives and Cooperation

The Co-operative University of Kenya (CUK) International Conference is an opportunity for researchers in the cooperative movement in Africa to share resources and provide opportunity to create new alliances and future collaborations. Its is an opportunitu for early career researchers on the continent of Africa to connect with others who face similar challenges in conducting cooperative research while trying to address the challenges posed by misunderstanding of the cooperative model and other business models.

In the 7th edition of the Conference, The Cooperative University of Kenya will be collaborating with The Moshi Cooperative University (Tanzania) to host a conference on "The Role of Social and Solidarity Economy in Sustainable Development, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation".

The Africa Young Scholars Workshop on Cooperatives and Cooperation has collaboratively been organised between YSI and the CUK for the last 5 years Together, we have organized 4 workshops and have brought together over 50 scholars that have used the network to further their research on cooperatives and the SSE in Africa. On the occasion of the 7th CUK Conference, we will hold a 6-hour workshop for young scholars to share their varied experiences in the field. The workshop will be in-person and mainly focused on career development paths for scholars with interests in cooperatives.

In the morning the workshop will have two keynote speakers who will talk about research methodologies, publications and theorisation in the area of cooperatives, and how to grow a career in cooperatives. It will be followed by Professor Emeritus who will share his cooperative research journey in Africa. In the afternoon, participants will split up into parallel small groups to discuss and work on their research interests with a senior mentor; three mentors have been identified and career paths with the advice of a senior scholar. The Young Scholars Program will finalise with a keynote speech, to which also senior scholars will be invited as a window for young scholars to network with seniors