Special honor for Carlo Borzaga

The New Year brought a special recognition to our President Emeritus Carlo Borzaga, who was granted the honorary title of Commendatore dell’Ordine “Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana” from the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella. This is a very prestigious title, intended for those who have distinguished themselves for special merits towards the nation in the field of letters, arts and economy. The official communication, along with the symbolic iron cross hanging from the green ribbon to be worn around his neck, was delivered directly to his home and recognizes a career full of important achievements.

It was an important and emotional day that Carlo Borzaga experienced on Monday, January 9, when he received the very prestigious title of  “Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana”. Received following a letter of nomination sent in recent months by colleagues and friends to Italian President Sergio Mattarella, this honor recognizes a career full of important achievements. Carlo Borzaga in fact, in his long history as a researcher, lecturer and social entrepreneur, has been a point of reference in public debate in Italy and beyond. Combining thought and action, he has represented and still represents a commitment to issues of great importance for the development of the country, with a perspective that has combined academic rigor and social activism.

“Beyond the prestigious recognition, which gives me immense pleasure, I was struck by two aspects”– were Borzaga’s first words – “the first, that the President of the Republic appreciated my work on cooperation in general, and on social enterprise in particular; and the second, is that the idea came from friends and collaborators of Euricse, which I interpreted as a gesture of esteem and affection towards me”.

Born in 1948, Carlo Borzaga was a senior lecturer at the University of Trento, where he held various positions, including chairing the Institute for Studies in the Development of Nonprofit Enterprises (ISSAN) from 1996 to 2008. Later he founded and served as president, until May 2022, the Euricse Foundation-European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, one of the most qualified European and international centers of study and research on the social economy and cooperation.

Carlo Borzaga’s is a name that does not go unnoticed by those in the field, but not only: he is generally recognized as one of the leading and most committed scholars of cooperation and the Third Sector, having published hundreds of essays, publications and academic articles concerning the subject of the labor market, social and cooperative enterprises, and welfare systems. In addition to studying and promoting cooperative economics, he has also put theory into practice, helping to found and support numerous organizations, including Villa Sant’Ignazio in Trento, one of the first cooperatives engaged in social work, which he led for nine years.

Borzaga also took an active part in the establishment of Federsolidarietà, the National Federation of Social Cooperatives, and the National Consortium of Social Cooperation – CGM, of which he was a director. From 1989 to 1993 he assumed the presidency of the Trentino Consortium of Social Cooperation Consolida, and in 1996 he founded the first university master’s degree program in Italy in Management of Social Enterprises, still active today, thanks to which more than 450 young recent graduates have found employment in the nonprofit sector.

As a scholar and expert, Prof. Borzaga has carried out intense legislative consulting activities at the national level, so much so that he is counted among the “fathers” of the most important laws on social cooperation,  above all l. 381/91. He worked alongside the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies for Law 68/1999 on the right to work of the disabled, and with the Government on Law 155/2006 on social enterprise, and the Ministry of Labor for the drafting of Delegated Law 117/2017, the so-called reform of the Third Sector.

Locally, he collaborated in drafting the Trentino Alto Adige regional law on cooperation and social solidarity (l.r. 24/1988), and other laws on the regulation of interventions to prevent and remove states of marginalization (l.r. 35/1983) and for the promotion and development of cooperation (l.p 15/1988).

He was also among the founders of the Italian Association of Labour Economists (AIEL) and has collaborated in various capacities and on several occasions on issues related to the social economy with the European Commission, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

It is difficult to summarize in a few lines Carlo Borzaga’s long research and civic commitment, as well as the scientific value of his contributions, which have substantially fostered the development of political and practical reflections on cooperatives, social enterprises and welfare systems. All these motivations, together with the intellectual and human generosity with which Prof. Borzaga has always been able to motivate the friends, colleagues and collaborators with whom he interacts, made it possible for him to receive this important recognition.