Inaugurated in March 2023, the Social Economy, Protection and Society (ESoPS) Chair places its work at the intersection between the social economy and social protection. Its members conduct research on current changes in the social world, in order to analyse their drivers and better support them.
The ESoPS Chair stemmed from a need, expressed by many researchers, experts, and professionals of the broader world of the social economy, to build a more integrated approach to mechanisms and overall changes in individual protection.
Although medical, human sciences, and social sciences research has given rise to many rigorous analyses about health protection, the fight against poverty, employment pathways or loss of autonomy, these analyses are most often limited to a single social risk. Moreover, specialised disciplines, a legacy of our system and of the need for organisation in scientific research, have a limited dialogue with one another. An overall picture of social protection is missing. To put it together, all players must be involved, especially those active in the field of the social and solidarity economy, who play a bigger and bigger role in protecting individuals.
At the intersection of the social economy and social protection, the ESoPS Chair wishes to decompartmentalise the study of current changes in the social world by conducting truly interdisciplinary scientific work, popularisation actions, and training, by combining legal, economic, sociological, and historical approaches.
A forum of dialogue between disciplines, its aim is to promote exchanges of knowledge between practitioners of individual protection, be they academics, experts, representatives of institutions or organisations, grass-roots operational players.
Our ambition: to work towards a better understanding of the phenomena around social protection so we can be involved in improving actual care for individuals.
Integrated both into the Fondation Panthéon-Sorbonne and the IAES (Economic and Social Administration Institute) within Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, with which it shares the same multidisciplinary approach, the ESoPS Chair leads research work that might decompartmentalise knowledge around the social economy and social protection, by integrating these fields in all their complexity, in order to shed light on social demands around these questions. Far from being a separate field, social protection is at the core of public policy. It raises cross-cutting issues, which the ESoPS Chair aims to address with integrative responses.
