The New Year brought recognition to one of the EMES founders, Professor Carlo Borzaga, who was granted the honorary title of Commendatore dell’Ordine “Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana” from the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella. This very prestigious title is intended for those who have distinguished themselves for special merits towards the nation in the field of letters, arts and economy.
It was an important and emotional day for Carlo Borzaga at the beginning of 2023 when he received the prestigious “Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana.” He received a letter of nomination sent in recent months by colleagues and friends to Italian President Sergio Mattarella. This honour recognises a career full of important achievements. Carlo Borzaga, in fact, in his long history as a researcher, lecturer and social entrepreneur, has been a point of reference in public debate in Italy and beyond.
“Beyond the prestigious recognition, which gives me immense pleasure, I was struck by two aspects”-were Borzaga’s first words-“the first, that the President of the Republic appreciated my work on cooperation in general, and on social enterprise in particular; and the second, is that the idea came from friends and collaborators of Euricse, which I interpreted as a gesture of esteem and affection towards me.”
Born in 1948, Carlo Borzaga was a senior lecturer at the University of Trento. He held various positions, including chairing the Institute for Studies in the Development of Nonprofit Enterprises (ISSAN) from 1996 to 2008. Later he founded the Euricse Foundation-European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises. He is a founding member of the EMES network and a member of the board of the IRIS Network (network of the Italian research centres on social enterprises).
Carlo Borzaga is a name that does not go unnoticed by those in the field, but not only: he is generally recognized as one of the leading and most committed scholars of cooperation and the Third Sector, having published hundreds of essays, publications and academic articles concerning the subject of the labour market, social and cooperative enterprises, and welfare systems. As a scholar and expert, Prof. Borzaga has carried out intense legislative consulting activities at the national level, so much so that he is counted among the “fathers” of the most important laws on social cooperation, above all l. 381/91. He worked alongside the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies for Law 68/1999 on the right to work of the disabled, with the Government on Law 155/2006 on social enterprise, and with the Ministry of Labor for the drafting of Delegated Law 117/2017, the so-called reform of the Third Sector.
It is difficult to summarize Carlo Borzaga’s long research and civic commitment in a few lines and the scientific value of his contributions, which have substantially fostered the development of political and practical reflections on cooperatives, social enterprises and welfare systems. All these motivations, together with the intellectual and human generosity with which Prof. Borzaga has always been able to motivate the friends, colleagues and collaborators with whom he interacts, made it possible for him to receive this important recognition.
Using this momentum, we invite you to nominate candidates for Lifetime Achievement Award and honour those people who have significantly contributed to consolidating the EMES network and SE as a research field. To nominate a candidate, please send their name and a short explanation to lifetimeaward@emes.net.