Ewa Leś - Brief Bio

Ewa Leś is Professor of Political Science at Warsaw University, Chair of Postgraduate Programme of Social Economy Managers at University of Warsaw and Coordinator of the EQUAL Project on Social Economy "We Have Jobs", Chair of the Research Center on Non-Profit Organizations at the Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Science and Director of Postgraduate Programme of  NGOs Management at Collegium Civitas.

Prof. Leś experience on coordinating major research projects includes:
• Comparative Non-Profit Sector Project funded by the Johns Hopkins University (1997-2001), co-coordinator of the Polish team of the Johns Hopkins research project.
• Non-Profit Sector Project in Poland  funded by the Polish Committee for Scientific Research (2000-2002).
• Research on Social Employment. Research on Monitoring the Act on Social Employment funded by the Polish Ministry of Social Policy (2004-2005).
• Development of Polish Social Economy. EQUAL Project (2004-2008).
• Impact of the European Social Fund on non-profit organizations.

International membership:
• Ewa Leś was co-founder of the Polish Association of Social Workers (1987).
• President of the Polish Association of Social Workers (1989-1991).
• Elected member of the advisory group to the executive board of Inter-University Consortium for International Social Development (IUCISD) (1991-1993).
 • Member of the scientific advisory group of the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development (since 2004).
 
International experience:
• Carleton University, School of Social Work, Ottawa, Canada, visiting scholar (1987).
• Denver University, School of Social Work, Denver, Colorado, USA, full-time work assignment at Graduate School of Social Work, under the Program for Youth Leaders and Social Workers organized by Council of International Programs (1987).
• Université Laval, Ecole de Service Social, Quebec, Canada, visiting researcher (1989).
• The Johns Hopkins University, Institute for Policy Studies, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, a Senior Fellow in the International.
• Fellowship in Philanthropy Program (1992).
• Tokyo Metropolitan University, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Tokyo, Japan/ a fellowship granted by the Japan Foundation (1996).

Selected publications:

• Leś, E. (1994), The Voluntary Sector in Post-Communist East Central Europe. Washington, D.C.: CIVICUS.

• Leś, E. (2000), From Philanthropy to Subsidiarity. Non-profit Organizations in Comparative Perspective. Warsaw: Publishing House Elipsa.
• Leś, E. (2001), Zarys historii dobroczynności i filantropii w Polsce (The History of Charity and Philanthropy in Poland),  Warsaw: Prószyński i S-ka.
• Leś, E. (ed) Social Welfare: From Clientism to Participatory Welfare.