The social economy in the classroom: the challenge of postgraduate education

Education in social economy, a challenge of postgraduate training. In most cases, the training offered by universities in their degree courses related to business studies does not cover any specialised knowledge regarding the Social Economy. For this reason, if any professional person is interested in training in this field, they must complete their training with a postgraduate course.

The Spanish objective 

The Spanish Social Economy Strategy, framed in the 2023-2027 period, responds to the Spanish Government’s interest in promoting the Social Economy and in this way increase its contribution to socio-economic development. In order to achieve this, it is essential to have a quality higher education system, which trains professionals who are qualified to take on the social economy of the 21st century.

In fact, Line of Action 11 indicates “training for entrepreneurship in the educational system”, marking out the aim of “extending the training for social economy entrepreneurship in the educational curriculums of both non-university and university education.”

Training is also a key element to encourage the generational replacement in the social economy and to attract young people, in line with Line of Action 16 of the abovementioned strategy.

The training offer in education in social economy

In the academic year 2024-2025, 135 postgraduate training actions were recorded, along with 23 professorships and 3 doctorate programmes related to the Social Economy in Spain, according to the report La Economía Social en la Formación Universitaria de Posgrado (The Social Economy in University Postgraduate Education) by the Spanish Business Confederation of Social Economy (CEPES).

This educational training is divided up into different formats. While some universities and centres give courses directly related to the Social Economy, others offer more specific training regarding a specific business formula within this field.

In particular, 50.8 % of the courses offer specific training in the Social Economy, while the remaining 49.2 % include subjects related to this business model on their study plans.

Out of all the courses on offer, 30.4 % correspond to master courses run by the universities themselves or as permanent training; 20% to official university masters courses; 14.1% to specialisation diplomas and another 14.1% to expert university diplomas.

According to the different regional communities, Catalonia concentrates 29.7% of the training in Social Economy, followed by the Community of Valencia with 16.7% and Madrid with 11.6%.

Professorships in social economy

The report includes the existence of 23 professorships promoted by different Spanish universities, dedicated to research, training and dissemination linked directly to the Social Economy.

Over the last year two new professorships have been created:

• The Social Economy Professorship of the International University of Andalusia.
• The Social Economy Professorship of the University of Granada.

A challenge for the future

In order to face up to the current challenges of the Social Economy, it is essential to have a regulated educational training in Spain that allows qualified professionals, with a forward-looking approach to be trained.

Another key step for the Social Economy to gain visibility amongst future professionals would be to include it on the curriculum of university qualifications related to economic science.

Over the past 15 years, a growing trend has been observed towards the specialisation, technification and diversification of the educational offer in this field. However, this increase has mainly occurred in degree courses “related to the Social Economy,” which contributes to the cross-disciplinary spreading of the knowledge.

Although an increasing number of Spanish universities and educational centres are extending their courses in this field, this offer is still limited and has room for improvement, a weakness that is expressly indicated by the new Spanish Social Economy Strategy (EES).

For this reason, there is still a great deal to be done in order to balance out the weight of traditional business with social economy business within the academic area.