Expert Talk at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen on January, 20 2012
At Zeppelin University’s public ‘Research Day’, which took place on January, 20 2012, an interested audience heard IRENE I SEE student Aline Wachner present her doctoral project, which is funded by the Siemens Stiftung as part of IRENE.
The introduction was given by Prof. Stephan A. Jansen, the President and Managing Director of Zeppelin University. He spoke about the IRENE I SEE project, in which the feasibility, utility, limits and long-term effects of social economic empowerment in selected Latin American and African countries are studied, as a research program started last year in cooperation with the Siemens Stiftung. He explained to the audience how this cooperation came into existence and how it works: the Siemens Stiftung as the initiator of this project funds the doctoral studies of promising PhD candidates, who research particular issues of social economic empowerment in their country, collect primary data, produce empirical studies and write a doctoral thesis.
He was followed by Dr. Lisa Hanley, a postdoc member of the academic staff at Zeppelin University and science manager for IRENE I SEE, who introduced the general background, the core questions and the objectives of IRENE. She also described where IRENE I SEE stands in relation to the ‘Encourage. Empowering People’ program of the Siemens Stiftung and explained how IRENE represents an equally concrete contribution to scientific education. Dr. Hanley gave an explanation of how ‘social economic empowerment’ refers equally to two aspects: both to the process of entrepreneurial and social self-empowerment through professional assistance with, for instance, implementing supervised business solutions for social problems locally (the process of becoming empowered) and to fostering this process, in the course of which the Siemens Stiftung may initiate or fund social enterprises, or develop and support accompanying educational measures (the professional support for this process).
After Dr. Hanley’s contribution, Aline Wachner – incorporating the latest international research – presented her doctoral project with the title “From Accountability to Social Economic Empowerment: Locating Social Entrepreneurship in the Global South”. She demonstrated how the process of accountability and the pattern of responsibilities within a social enterprise differ from those in a purely market-oriented business, and how the community, as beneficiary, must likewise be integrated into the so-called ‘accounting process’. The central question of her research is: “Does the market-orientation of social businesses really increase their downward accountability?” After her presentation, Aline Wachner discussed her theses with the audience.
The event was held in the English language.
to news: Expert Talk at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen on January, 20 2012
to news: Seminar on “Social Entrepreneurship” at Zeppelin University, spring 2012
