ABSTRACT
It is widely acknowledged that the first major research works on social enterprise across Europe took place in the framework of a large EU-funded project covering the fifteen countries which, by that time (1996–1999), made up the European Union. This pioneering effort, undertaken by a “European Thematic Network” and named EMES according to its research project’s title, was at the same time conceptual, empirical and theoretical, and it paved the way for numerous subsequent works undertaken by the same group, which then formed the EMES European Research Network, 1 as well as by other scholars. Although the research community on social enterprise has experienced a very fast growth in the last decade, the EMES Network is still a central player in Europe, and its activities are now being enlarged at the world level. 2
