Bio
R. Trebor Scholz is a professor at The New School in New York City and also serves as a Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center and a Visiting Researcher at the Berlin Social Science Center.
With a Ph.D. from the University of Plymouth, his research focuses on cooperative entrepreneurship within the digital economy. Scholz is widely recognized for developing the concept of “platform cooperatives,” a set of models for worker-owned and democratically controlled digital platforms that advance economic, social, labor, and environmental justice. A global keynote speaker, he has delivered hundreds of talks, sharing his research with diverse audiences.
His work has earned support from the European Commission, the Rockefeller Foundation, Google.org, the Berggruen Institute/USC, the Open Society Foundations, Mondragon University, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Ford Foundation. His influential books, such as Own This!: How Platform Cooperatives Help Workers Build a Democratic Internet—winner of the Joyce Rothschild Book Award—and Uberworked and Underpaid, have been translated into multiple languages, establishing a new academic subfield of Solidarity Tech.
In 2017, Scholz founded the Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) at The New School, followed by the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy (ICDE) two years later. Both institutions are leaders in research, education, and community building, advancing cooperative principles to address the challenges of the digital economy. The PCC has been pivotal in driving discussions on the digital transition within the cooperative movement through 10 major global conferences in cities like Hong Kong, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mombasa, while influencing policy and legislation in numerous countries. The ICDE, meanwhile, hosts a fellowship program supporting 44 emerging scholars in the digital solidarity economy. As Director of PCC and ICDE, Scholz has led the exploration of platform cooperatives with partners across 60 countries, fostering innovation and championing initiatives that have positively impacted millions of workers.
Learn more at https://platform.coop/