Since the beginning of the 90s, the Center for Social Economy (CES), founded by Professor Jacques Defourny, joined since then by Professors Sybille Mertens (Cera Social Entrepreneurship Chair) and Benjamin Huybrechts (Chaire SRIW-Sowecsom "Social Economy Management") has acquired a great international reputation in the fields of social economy and social entrepreneurship. The Centre aims for a triple mission:

• Develop research in the social economy and social entrepreneurship, mainly in terms of economic analysis, management and sociology;

• Support social economy and social entrepreneurship teaching at the University of Liege and elsewhere. 

• Provide services to collectivity, public and private decision-makers in relation with its expertise.

   

Research at the Centre covers a broad array of topics, such as:

• Conceptual approaches of the social economy and social entrepreneurship in the North and the South (Europe, North America, Eastern Asia, etc.)

• The statistics of the social economy, notably with the implementation of a non-profit organization "satellite account" (in partnership with the UN and Belgium National Bank)

• Management issues in social enterprises (financing, marketing and strategy, governance and human resource management)

• The emergence and institutionalization of social enterprise

• Social enterprise performance measurement

   

These topics and many others are investigated in different fields (work integration, education, health, fair trade, renewable energy, etc.) and using different theoretical approaches (mainly in economics, management and organizational sociology).

Within HEC Management School, University of Liege, the CES belongs to the Economics and Management Education and Research Units. The CES coordinates the "Management of Social Enterprises" orientation, a specific orientation within the Master in Management Sciences. Two Chairs within the CES contribute to the teaching and research in management and entrepreneurship in the social economy, namely the "Cera Chair in Social Entrepreneurship" and the "SRIW-Sowecsom Chair in Management in the Social Economy".

Since 1996, the CES has hosted the Coordination Unit of the EMES European Research Network, which includes 10 research centres throughout the European Union and individual researchers specialized in the field of social enterprise and related concepts (social and solidarity economy, non-profit organizations, third sector, etc.). The CES regularly welcomes doctoral and post-doctoral researchers from different countries.

http://www.ces-ulg.be/index.php?id=3&L=1

Peak of excellence
Social enterprises and the social economy 

This center concentrates on research in public economics, economics of population and labor.  It is particularly interested in the following five major themes:  the viability of the social security system faced with the aging of the population and globalization; capital gains tax and inheritance tax; the analysis and measuring of economic dysfunction; social exclusion and means to remedy it, and the organization of health insurance.   

www.ulg.ac.be/crepp 

Peak of excellence
Economic analysis and public governance

The "Center for Asset and Risk Management (CARM)" runs an applied research program focusing on practical applications for education and the professional community. 

The cornerstone of the Center's approach to developing its research program is the way in which it crosses scientific research with the identification of the financial sector's real needs.  Each of CARM's full-time team leaders holds a chair – KBL Chair in Fund Industry, Ethias Chair in Asset and Risk Management and Deloitte Chair of Financial Management. This triple partnership guarantees a perfect interconnection with the business world.

As concerns teaching and training, CARM instigated the creation of a virtual marketplace placed under the responsibility of the Center's members.  The PWC Trading Room, unique within the Francophone Community, constitutes the basis for teaching the market approach in finance. 

www.ulg.ac.be/crepp 

Peak of excellence
Asset and risk management

The Fiscal Institute of the University of Liege in Belgium (Europe) is a joint initiative of HEC–Management School and the Law Faculty.  The objective is to work under one unique umbrella to produce a selection of joint projects.

The Institute’s main aim is to stimulate and promote research in the field of fiscal affairs in all its aspects: company tax, inheritance tax and individual taxes, international and European taxation, (including aspects touching on Human Rights), indirect taxation (VAT, registration duties and inheritance taxes), as well as environmental taxation, public finance, including aspects of policy and fiscal sociology, etc. The Tax Institute is part of the Deloitte Chair

Peak of excellence
Tax Institute

This service is specialized in research, conducting studies and developing teaching tools in liaison with the sphere of SMEs and business creation.  However, it places special emphasis on the following 4 areas of research:  technological entrepreneurship and University spin-offs; technological innovation in SMEs; financing the risk capital of SMEs, and the internationalization of SMEs.

www.ulg.ac.be/crdocpme/ 

This Unit develops research activities in the sphere of skills management, the development of skills on the labor market, the management of in-company training, and the assessment and validation of skills.  

It gives priority to project-based research, associating practical, concrete problems with an analysis of the literature and meetings with experts, to end up with useful productions such as human resources management tools or software and/or the widest possible diffusion of the results via lectures, articles, congresses, etc. 

www.udi.hec.ulg.ac.be/cours/gestion-competences/  

Peak of excellence
Human resources management & organizational change

LENTIC is a research and intervention center concentrating on processes of organizational innovation.  It has become an obligatory point of reference in the analysis of developments in labor and organizations, especially in connection with information technologies.  Its multidisciplinary team conducts studies, as well as consultancy and accompaniment missions in organizations of all sizes, in both the market and the non-market sectors in Belgium and internationally.

www.lentic.be/

Peak of excellence
Human resources management & organizational change

The objective of EGID is to contribute to the development of knowledge and of research on all questions concerning gender (the dimension of men/women) and diversity of labor forces in companies and organizations and the challenges this entails for human resources management.  Its research and its activities are concentrated on the development of the labor market, on ways to organize work, on human resources management practices in private, public and non-market sector companies, and on women’s entrepreneurship.

www.egid.hec.ulg.ac.be 

Peak of excellence
Human resources management & organizational change

GRESP is a research center of Liège University which concentrates most of its research on the analysis of population problems.  Its main fields of activity and research relate to the following four subjects:  analysis of demographic phenomena; the working population; international migrations; and the population of developing countries.

www.gresp.hec.ulg.ac.be/  

The  “Quantitative methods and Operations Management” (QuantOM) center has several researchers from various fields, but all of them make extensive use of quantitative methods applied to management, logistics and operations management.  One of its objectives is to promote their use in the various areas of management.

www.quantom.hec.ulg.ac.be

Peak of excellence
Supply chain management and quantitative methods

The CIRIEC was founded in 1947 by Professor Edgard MILHAUD, a French economist teaching at Geneva University.  The association is now based in Belgium, within HEC-ULg.  The center conducts 2 kinds of activities.  Its own research, conducted internally with its own scientific network, deals with subjects concerning public economics or social and cooperative economics, for example, the methods and indicators for assessing social economics and the regulation of public services in the context of liberalization and open competition.  Commissioned research, particularly in response to tenders from European authorities, is carried out either within the center or in partnership with other international experts and networks.

http://www.ciriec.ulg.ac.be/en/pages/0_1presentation.htm

Peak of excellence
Social enterprises and the social economy 

At present, this research center is conducting fundamental research on the (non-) performance of organizations and enterprises, as well as applied research activities relating to the performance of organizations.  These studies are conducted at the request of public or para-public external partners.  Therefore, the Center is mainly in charge of major research projects on bankruptcy prevention and on the recovery of enterprises.

www.cepe.hec.ulg.ac.be 

Peak of excellence
Economic analysis and public governance

The IREM of HEC-ULg is part of the international IREM network.  These are

• Institutes conducting research on the specific perspectives and problems that appear at every level of mathematics teaching;
• teacher training institutes using projects largely based on fundamental and applied research;  and
• institutes that produce and distribute educational material (articles, brochures, manuals, journals, software, multi-media documents, etc.).

Contact j.bair@ulg.ac.be or j.navez@ulg.ac.be

SQUASH is the interfaculty platform of quantitative analysis in human and social sciences at the University of Liege. Its expertise in the field of quantitative research exemplifies in the development of the open source software Cassandre. This semi-automatic text analysis tools is a part of the collaborative platform Hypertropic.

http://www.squash.ulg.ac.be/

Interfaculty unit, resulted from collaboration between the economics department of HEC-School of Management of the University of Liège and the Faculty of Medicine (department of epidemiology, public health and health economics).

The research unit aims to evaluate the economic value of innovative medical technologies in order to help public and private decision makers to efficiently allocate scarce health resources.

www.hec.ulg.ac.be/en/faculty/networks-partnerships/emir/introduction