The COST Empower-SE ("Empowering the next generation of social enterprise scholars") WG1 “Foundations” meeting was hosted 16th-17th January in Budapest at the Corvinus University. The meeting, on which 93 researchers from 33 countries participated, was co-organized by our colleague Melinda Mihály (IRS CERS HAS, Békéscsaba), by the colleagues of Corvinus University of Budapest (György Pataki and Julianna Kiss) and by the colleagues of the EMES International Research Network (Marthe Nyssens, Rocio Nogales, Sabine Spada and Thomas Pongo).