New website for International Co-operative Business Education Consortium

The International Co-operative Business Education Consortium (ICBEC) has launched a new website to maximise its impact. "Originally launched in 2013, ICBEC was re-launched in 2021, with the support of the International Centre for Co-operative Management (ICCM, Saint Mary’s University, Canada) and Sistema OCB (Brazil). Since 2022, the European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (Euricse) has provided the Secretariat for ICBEC.

A global cooperative business education network, ICBEC brings together actors in cooperative business education to better understand each other’s programmes and mandates. The network is aimed at institutions and centres that provide business education programmes on the cooperative, credit union, and mutual enterprise models, such as formal degrees, diplomas, certificates, and professional development programmes.

Through the network, members can collaborate where this is mutually beneficial and avoid overlap while ensuring their programmes respond to the needs of cooperative and mutual enterprises globally.

The new website was developed by VME Coop, a workers’ cooperative and leading provider of retail technology software to retail co-ops in the UK. 

ICBEC brings together 24 registered members and over 150 participants. 

“We have an extensive network of educators and are now hoping to better promote what we are doing and find synergies with the global cooperative movement,” said the ICBEC.