The object of study is institutions created or transformed with the primary function of providing solidarity and assistance. To delimit the field of investigation, which is particularly broad, reference will be made to those institutions that played a significant role in the area in which they operated.

1st session
Evolution and types

(Assistance to the poor and needy that evolved towards lay and welfare organisations)
- geographic areas and their chronology (also in relation to any influence of religious thought)
- differences between cities and the countryside
- different orientations depending on the institutional characteristics of the state (centralised states, city-states, relation between the centre and periphery, etc.)

We are requesting research that describes the creation and evolution of charitable institutions, in relation to purposes they set for themselves, the promoter subjects and organisers, management modes and the types of assistance

2nd session
Sources of financing and self-financing

- external contributions
- asset management
- labour of the assisted

We are requesting research that analyses the strategies and methods for acquiring the financing necessary for achieving the institutional goals; active management and evolution of acquired assets (which allows revenues used to finance institutional activities), any forms of self-financing (including any use of the labour of those assisted or the acquisition of their assets)

3rd session
Management, organisation and costs of the services offered to the recipient subjects

We are requesting research that analyses the functional organisation of charitable institutions and the internal management costs incurred to achieve their goals, both in terms of structural organisation and personnel costs and in terms of the acquisition of goods and services destined to the support of those assisted.

4th session
Impact on the economy and society

We are requesting research that attempts to assess the economic and social effects produced by the actions of charitable institutions, not only in terms of the redistribution of income and maintenance of social peace, but also in relation to any relationship with the productive reality, thanks to the insertion of products and services on the market performed by the assisted persons or the institution's personnel.

5th session
The non formal welfare

We are requesting research that attempts to examine, in absence or scarcity of institutions, the non institutionalised and not formal welfare networks (solidarity and credit forms into families or paupers’ groups or communities), by them the individuals, the communities and the entire society attempt to protect themselves from the extreme poverty’s and inability’s risks.

Scholars are invited to assess these premises and to send their presentation proposals by filling out the form provided, which has been prepared to help the Scientific Committee perform a careful evaluation of the proposals.
The intervention must be an original contribution. It must be in the form of a report (contribution in a general and comparative style) or a communication (contribution in a specific style or presentation of a case study).
Projects presented by work groups that bring together scholars from different disciplines will be evaluated with particular interest for the purpose of achieving a comparative analysis of the proposed subject in geographic or diachronic terms through two or more related contributions. In this latter case, the proposal could be written using a single form.

The format used to fill out the proposal should be submitted by September 30, 2010 at the following address:

Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica "F. Datini"
via Muzzi 38, I 59100 Prato, ITALY
e-mail: datini@istitutodatini.it

The Scientific Committee will only consider formats which have been filled out completely. Acceptances will be decided by the year 2010.

The members of the Committee are: Wim Blockmans (Leiden, President), Michele Cassandro (Siena, Vice President), Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada (Madrid, Vice President), Giampiero Nigro (Florence, Scientific Director), Erik Aerts (Leuven), Murat Çizakça (Istanbul), Antonio Di Vittorio (Bari), Laurence Fontaine (Paris), Alberto Grohmann (Perugia), Paolo Malanima (Naples), Adam Manikowski (Warsaw), Paola Massa (Genoa), Michael North (Greifswald).

All of the works presented at the conference must be original and should not have been previously published or translated from prior publications.

The provisional texts of the selected contributions for the Week of Studies should be submitted to the Datini Foundation by February 28, 2012. Such contributions will be put online on the web pages of the Foundation before the Week of Studies (with protected access reserved for the speakers, the communicators and the members of the Scientific Committee), in order to allow a more thorough discussion of the contents.

During the convention, participants will present a synthesis of their contribution, which should last 20 minutes for the reports and 10 minutes for the oral presentation, in one of the three official languages of the conference (Italian, French and English). Simultaneous translation will be provided for the above mentioned languages.

The definitive texts of the works presented, reviewed by the authors (maximum 70,000 characters for the reports; 40,000 characters for the communications) should be sent to the Foundation by June 30, 2012. The communications are being subject to an anonymous refeee. If they will pass it, they will be published (with an abstract in two languages to be prepared by the author) in the Conference Proceedings of the Week of Studies within one year. Texts written in Spanish or German will also be accepted for publication in the Conference Proceedings.

The Datini Foundation will cover the following costs for participants who are definitively invited:
- Train ticket (first class) or plane ticket (special fare in a tourist class), according to the conditions indicated in a letter which will be sent a few months before the convention
- Lodging for 5 nights in Prato in hotels which collaborate with the Foundation (overnight stay including breakfast)
- 20 Euros a day in meal vouchers, which can be used at restaurants with discounted prices which are affiliated with the Foundation
- No monetary reimbursement.