SCIC – a French style social enterprise

SCIC – a French style social enterprise

Our activities consist of a unique combination of scientific research and educational and social outreach.

    • The Atelier des Jours à Venir, which was initially set up as a non-profit association, was transformed in January 2013 into a French type of social enterprise, called a "cooperative company of public interest” (SCIC, société coopérative d’intérêt collectif). As a cooperative, this company is owned and managed by the employees. In addition, as a cooperative "of public interest", its activity is formally recognized as socially relevant and non-profit.
    • This specific type of company also allows the involvement of different actors: our team consists of full-time researchers and teachers who contribute as volunteers, as well as researchers and educators employed by the Atelier des Jours à Venir. Employing experts allows us to strengthen our expertise and to build up large scale and long term projects, while close collaboration with full-time researchers and teachers ensures the anchorage of our actions in the academic community, and allows these members to nurture their academic activity with their experience from the Atelier des Jours à Venir.
  • Based on this diversity of our members, we can balance free contributions and remunerated interventions. The price of our interventions reflects our non-profit status and possible public financial support or sponsorship. We aim to achieve a financial equilibrium that allows us to:
      • adapt the price of our interventions, ultimately down to free for those with limited financial means
      • explore new projects which expand our expertise
      • afford decent salaries for our high profile full-time employees.