An economic system in which assets or services are shared between private individuals, either for free or for a fee, typically by means of the Internet”. Wosskow (2014) defines “sharing economy” as “online platforms that help people share access to assets, resources, time and skills”. This definition underlines an important characteristic of the “sharing economy”: the significant level of disintermediation it allows in transactions between providers and final customers.

1.Gift economy: provides access or reuse of goods, skills, services not mediated by money. No-Profit. e.g. Home exchange, Couchsurfing

2.Peer to peer economy: offers an opportunity to build a shared good in which everyone participates according to his capability. No Profit. e.g. Wikipedia, Open Source

3.Rental economy: provides access to goods, skills, services, exchange for a cash reward. Profit. e. g. Airbnb

4.On demand Economy: customers wanting goods and services on demand are in contact. No collaboration among the users (the platform establishes the price and selects the staff) Profit. e.g. Uber

A “social business” is a company created for social benefit rather than private profit. It is a type of business that focuses on addressing specific social or environmental problems in a financially self-sustainable way. Investors in social businesses are entitled to only the original principal of their investment. Any profits generated by the social business are recycled into the same or other social businesses or socially beneficial activities. Thus, while social business in many aspects is similar to normal commercial business, it does not aim to maximize shareholder value. Instead, it aims to generate beneficial social and environmental outcomes through (i) focus on maximizing employment and income opportunities to all stakeholders along a commercial value chain, including micro-entrepreneurs, with particular focus on vulnerable groups such as female or rural populations, and/or (ii) tailoring products or services to solve specific social or environmental problems.

“a technological innovation that takes place outside the value network of the established firms and introduces a different package of attributes from the one mainstream customers historically value”. De Streel & Larouche (2015). Some examples are Personal Computer, Facebook and Ryanair.

The shared use of a good or service by a group. Collaborative consumption differs from standard commercial consumption in that the cost of purchasing the good or service is not borne by one individual, but instead is divided across a larger group as the purchase price is recouped through renting or exchanging. Some examples of innovative applications of collaborative consumption are Airbnb (peer-to-peer travel), Blablacar (car sharing), G.A.S. (Solidarity Purchasing Groups) Bank time, co-working and home swap.

is an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves actively groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product, in a peer to peer situation. This can be achieved by: giving learners projects they have to participate in and resolve the given project challenges, team-working, field research, study visits, e-learning, business games and many more similar and creative activities. The main point is that the learners should be in the focus and his/her active participation has to be encouraged. Some examples of collaborative learning are Wikipedia and MOOC.

describes a specific category of financial transaction which occurs directly between individuals without the intermediation of a traditional financial institution. This new way to manage informal financial transactions has been enabled by advances in social media and peer-to-peer on line platforms. Some examples of collaborative finance approaches are crowdfunding, crowd-sourced equity, lending peer-to-peer, mini-bond.

is a concept that addresses the process of establishing, steering, facilitating, operating, and monitoring cross-sector organizational arrangements to address public policy problems that cannot be easily addressed by a single organization or the public sector alone. This mode of governance focuses on public issues and brings multiple stakeholders from different sectors together in common forum to engage in consensus-oriented solution seeking, problem solving and decision-making in order to leverage and build on the unique attributes and resources of each (UNCG Collaborative Capacity Work Group, Working Draft, January 12, 2012).

is a form of collective housing which has some characteristics: a social contact design where the physical design encourages a strong sense of community; extensive common facilities as an integral part of the community common areas; resident involvement in the recruitment, production and operational processes; collaborative lifestyles offering inter-dependence, support networks, sociability and security (McCamant and Durrett, 1994, Williams, 2008).

means a way of working in which working individuals gather in a place to create value while sharing information and wisdom by means of communication and cooperating under the conditions of their choices. (UDA, 2013)

Ethical finance considers credit access as a human right. The institutions consider the non-economic consequences of their operation as important as the economic ones. The activity is based on a full disclosure of information towards stakeholders and on a special attention to environmental, human right, social issues and society (Baranes, 2009)

is mostly associated with social and solidarity economics for the main failures of the pure-market or laissez-faire system practiced in the last few decades.

EU defines social economy as a significant proportion of economy where the entities are intended to make profits for people other than investors or owners. It includes cooperatives, mutual societies, non-profit associations, foundations and social enterprises. The social economy operates a very broad number of commercial activities, provide a wide range of products and services http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/social-economy/index_en.htm.

after the public, the first sector and the private, the second sector, the third sector is formed by non-governmental organisations which are value-driven and which principally reinvest their surpluses to further social, environmental or cultural objectives; it includes voluntary and community organizations, charities and social enterprises, cooperatives and mutual.

Educational materials of any kind (e.g. textbooks, worksheets, lesson plans, instructional videos, entire online courses, educational games) which can be freely used, adapted and shared. OER have either been released under an open license or are in the public domain (i.e. copyright protection has expired).