The Wales Institute for Research into Cooperatives

The research centre was established in April 2000 as the first Welsh centre providing basic, strategic and applied research covering all aspects of the social economy. It is based at the Business School of the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff.

The social economy itself is broadly defined as the area covering the relationships between political, social and economic objectives and policy formulation and implementation.

Specific examples of such matters include: employee ownership, community enterprise, co-operative production, co-operative retailing, community provision of services and credit unions.

WIRC members provide academic analyses to raise the profile of the social economy and especially the co-operative sector within the academic community, while keeping a strong policy focus and sharing their academic skills to support co-operative enterprises in Wales.

Len Arthur, Tyrone O'Sullivan, Molly Scott Cato and Mike Newth at a recent WIRC event