What is a Co-op?

Cooperatives exist in every sector of the economy, and cooperatives range from very small, local businesses to large multi-national corporations.  Worldwide, there are over 750,000 cooperatives.

A cooperative is a business, but it is unique in several important ways. Cooperatives are autonomous associations of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.

VeriMe is a worker coop that provides a specific service to the community. A worker cooperative is simply a business that is employee-owned and structured as a cooperative with each of the employees having the opportunity to become members of the co-op.  Worker co-ops are democratically controlled with each worker who is a member having one vote, no matter their position within the business.  Any type of business can be structured as a worker cooperative.  Service cooperatives are formed for the purpose of providing a specialized service to its members, which can be researchers, consumers, businesses, or other groups.  Common types of service cooperatives include finance, utility, insurance, housing, and health care cooperatives.

Cooperatives:

• Are owned and democratically controlled by their membership — the people who use the cooperative's services or purchase its goods, not by outside investors.

• Elect their board of directors from within the membership.

• Return surplus revenues to members proportionate to their use of the cooperative.

• Are motivated not by profit, but by service, to meet needs of their members' needs for affordable and high quality goods or services.

Cooperatives follow seven internationally recognized principles:

• Voluntary and open membership

• Democratic member control

• Member economic participation

• Autonomy and independence

• Education, training and information

• Cooperation among cooperatives

• Concern for community

Who can participate?

VeriMe Cooperative membership is open to any person who has a need for identity verification to perform their research or scholarly activities. We use the OECD definition of “researcher”: professionals engaged in the conception or creation of new knowledge, products, processes, methods and systems, as well as in the management of the projects concerned. Worldwide, it is estimated there are over 100m people who fit this description.

VeriMe members share the responsibility of steering the cooperative. You select the board of directors and have input on important issues facing the cooperative. Through your opinions, your feedback and your votes, you help lead the cooperative. We hope you will take advantage of the services we provide, and we hope that you will take a few moments to be involved and let us know what you think.

Why is it needed?

VeriMe was formed because too many researchers and scholars experience frustration with identity verification services that are clunky and poorly integrated into research workflows, and that ask researchers to repeatedly expose private information. This is not the avenue to establishing trust and research integrity.

Individual researchers should not have to release private documents to prove their identity at every checkpoint. They should be able to prove their identity and share proof that verification is “true” with requesting organizations. Individual researchers should be able to see what evidence is required to access research tools and services as well as how to achieve these requirements.

VeriMe concentrates the work of identity verification so that everyone benefits. And researchers are part of making decisions, including electing our board, because their participation and the security and privacy of their identification data are what VeriMe is all about.

Together, we can streamline access to research tools, services, and funding while improving attribution and accountability, and ultimately research integrity and public trust.