Project 1: A historical perspective on social enterprise as a public health intervention

This project started in March 2014. The data collection phase has now concluded and a series of outputs are nearing completion. News of completed outputs will be advertised through our blog and web pages. The broad aim of the project has been to chart the history of Social Enterprise in Scotland from the experiments in community business that emerged from the revival of the co-operative movement in the late 1970s, through the turbulent times of the 1990s and into the 21st century. Emerging findings suggest that community business activity acted upon, what would now be defined as, social determinants of health in ways unrecognised by contemporary evaluation.

The project was the first to make extensive use of the Social Enterprise Collection (Scotland) and will combined this archival research with oral history interviews. The recordings of these interviews are being added to edShare@GCU. To hear a short extract from the interviews please click here. Time was also allocated in the project to prepare John Pearce’s personal papers, which are now being catalogued. Thus, the project has practical outputs, developing and growing the archival collection, as well as intellectual research outputs, which include a research blog and journal articles. 

Project 1 Researcher: Gillian Murray
Email: gillian.murray2@gcu.ac.uk

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