Frédéric Dufays

With an academic background in Business administration (University of Maastricht) and Economic and Political Sociology (Institut d’Etudes Politiques – Sciences-Po Paris), Frédéric Dufays has worked for the regional (Walloon) and the Belgian federal public services of Foreign affairs, especially with regard to international organizations (UNESCO, WTO, OECD, EU). He integrated the Centre for Social Economy at the HEC Management School of the University of Liege (EMES Research Centre) in 2012 as a PhD-student. In 2013, he was granted a FRESH (FNRS) scholarship. His dissertation dealt with collective dynamics in nascent social entrepreneurship. In 2016, he joined the KULeuven to coordinate the Cera-BoerenBond Chair 'Centre of Expertise for Cooperative Entrepreneurship'. Since 2021, he has returned to the Centre for Social Economy HEC Liège, ULiège to become an Assistant Professor. His current research projects deal with innovation in democratic governance of cooperatives and on the interface between organisational democracy and democracy in society.