Dimitris, the community manager at Stone Soup Coworking Space in Athens is looking for contributions for his research topic:
Sustainable employment policies implemented or designed by hubs and coworking spaces around Europe.
Being enthusiastic about collaborative workspaces and their potential, Dimitris has recently begun a Ph.D. research on sustainable employment, ethical branding, and platform economy, funded by the Cowork4Youth program, an Analysis, and Research European project aiming to increase knowledge on the impact of existing policies and offer policy suggestions. The research will also focus on practices such as social digital platforms and (rural) co-working spaces as “intermediate spaces” for training, skills development, and promoting the profile of young job seekers (self-branding). It will be a co-supervised dissertation by various European research institutions.
The thematic axes on which the proposed thesis will be based are, broadly speaking, three: sustainable employment, co-working spaces, and platform economy.
The indicative research hypothesis can be summarised as follows: coworking spaces promote, through state-public, European, or private policies, sustainable employment by supporting so-called (former or current) young NEETS (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) to reintegrate into the labor market. Promoting the platform economy and developing skills for NEETS to promote their potential and themselves (self-branding) through it is key to this support. Policy-making through qualitative research and mapping/comparison of existing policies around Europe is what is pursued as a result.
Please contact Dimitris directly if your space has planned, runs, or intends to design such a supportive scheme to boost its local community dynamics, he would be interested in including the initiative in the mapping and helping you with any ideas!
You can send an email to dimitrismanoukas@gmail.com or reach out through the LinkedIn profile!
Thank you for your time and for being part of the ECHN community!
