Local regeneration and community wealth building–place making: co-operatives as agents of change

Anthony Webster is a Professor in History at Northumbria University. His research interests are in British imperial and business history and the history of the co-operative movement. As his days at the University of Birmingham where he was awarded the Ashley Prize in 1985 for best PhD thesis, Tony has authored and co-authored many books and articles, including “Building Co-operation: A Business History of The Co-operative Group 1863–2013” (2013). The book formed the principal historical source used for the Kelly Report into the problems of the Co-operative Bank, and Tony was invited to present his research at Bank of England. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and member of the Economic History Society.

Dr Olga Kuznetsova is a Reader in Comparative Business Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has over 25 years of experience of working in higher education in different countries. The focus of Olga’s research, which is published internationally, is on transitioning societies, organisations, institutional and business environments. Much of her work is concerned with relations between business and society and the formation of the CSR agenda in emerging market economies.

A passionate educator and co-operator, Dr Cilla Ross is a Principal and CEO of Co-operative College UK. Previously she worked across the UK higher education sector at the Universities of Sheffield, Leeds and the Working Lives Research Institute. Cilla is an adult educator and work sociologist and has been responsible for designing and managing teaching, research and learning initiatives throughout the European community and for quality assurance, curriculum design and blended learning innovations. Cilla has taught, written and researched extensively on life-wide education and the changing nature of work. She was closely involved in co-designing the Rochdale initiative and exploring union co-operatives.

Cécile Berranger has a BSc in Economics, an MSc in Development and Environmental Economics and a Master in “co-operative firm: economics, law and management”, all from the Università degli Studi Roma Tre. Cécile has done an internship and then an external consultancy for the Cooperatives and Producers Organisations team of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, where she has also conducted a fieldwork research experience in Uganda aiming to analyse the Ugandan co-operative movement. Cécile is working on a PhD project at Manchester Metropolitan University on co-operative place-making in Rochdale.

Michelle Booth is a Lecturer at Northumbria University. With a background in the public sector and social economy, Michelle specialises in social enterprise and social entrepreneurship. Michelle is pursuing PhD research on place-based social enterprise ecosystems, with a keen interest in social capital creation in communities. Outside of the university, Michelle is the founder-director of Captivate Enterprise, a specialist social economy consultancy working predominately in the north-east and north-west regions. She is also a director a number of social enterprises including Side by Side Arts CIC and Flourish Together CIC. In 2018, she was recognised as one of 100 leading women in social enterprise with a WiSE100 award.

Temidayo Eseonu works on her doctoral research project at the University of Manchester. Her study examines how the youths from black and minority ethnic groups are included in the co-production of employment services in a local council in Greater Manchester. Dayo studied Economics at the University of Essex and then completed Master programmes in Human Resource Management and Management Psychology at the University of Bradford and University of Nottingham, respectively. For a number of years, Dayo worked for private, not-for-profit and voluntary sectors within the roles covering diversity and inclusion practices.

Yaron Golan is a PhD Candidate at the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University. Yaron’s work is on exploring the genealogy of the co-operative Character and its Britishness’ aspects in the context of the co-operative movement.