About us

About us

The LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research is located in the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences of Mondragon Unibertsitatea, in Eskoriatza campus. The research center was created in 2001 with three main goals:

1. To analyze the cooperative experience of Mondragon and the cooperative movement in general.
2. To promote the social and solidarity economy.
3. To promote social innovation and self-training.

Cooperatives combine business logic and human values, from that point of view, we are convinced that cooperativism is a useful tool for acting in the economy and organizing society. Thus, in the LANKI Institute of Cooperative Research, taking current challenges as a point of departure, we are renewing and consolidating the inherent characteristics of cooperativism to forge 21st-century cooperativism by working in cooperation and sharing experiences.

LANKI has two primary tasks: first, to combine university knowledge and cooperative practice; and second, to have an impact on the local and foreign cooperative situation. We have the following resources for this purpose: cooperative education, research and consulting, and dissemination, all of which can be brought to bear for a greater purpose: to boost cooperativism and to share in different arenas the knowledge and experience that we have gathered during all our years in the field of cooperativism.

We have unprecedented experience in cooperativism training: more than 12,000 cooperativists have taken part in our training, work sessions, and tailored courses. Additionally, we have university-level offerings: Master’s degrees, specialist certifications, and a number of courses aimed at professionals.

The second strength of the LANKI Institute Co-operative Research is research and consultancy on cooperativism. We have a very close relationship with society, business, public institutions and agents of the cooperative movement. Indeed, one of the goals of the group is to conduct research and at the same time transfer that knowledge. Thus, throughout all our years in the field, we have guided research and consultancy as well as dozens of projects through the LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research.

Additionally, dissemination is essential to cooperativism, that is, it must reach people, and we also work hard in this area through journals, books, articles, audiovisual materials, etc. We release many different productions both on paper and through digital media, all of which have one clear goal: to make the leap from the academic arena to society.

At present, about fifteen professionals are developing our work at the LANKI Institute of Co-operative Research.