Track Description
Social equity and sustainability are among the most urgent challenges faced by societies today (Nichols, 2024; Tiggelaar & George, 2025). The third sector, rooted in volunteering and community-based organizations, has historically provided a vital contribution to social cohesion and inclusion promoting diversity management and mobilizing civic participation and collective responsibility (Brescia, 2020). At the same time, healthcare systems, increasingly exposed to demographic pressures, financial constraints, and technological transformations, are called upon to guarantee universal access, equity in service delivery, and long-term resilience (Longo & Saadati, 2025).

Although different in scope, both the third sector and healthcare share a common trajectory: they pursue sustainability by embedding social equity and diversity management at the heart of their missions. Hybrid collaborations between public institutions, non-profit organizations, and community-based entities demonstrate how governance, transparency, and accountability can be leveraged to respond to societal needs in innovative and sustainable ways. These partnerships often rely on managerial and accounting tools to evaluate performance, measure social impact, and assess the value created for communities.

Recent research has mapped the growing relevance of volunteering and community-based practices in advancing social innovation and sustainability (Brescia et al., 2024). Empirical evidence from initiatives highlights how public–third sector partnerships in healthcare can benefit from integrated performance evaluation to improve governance and outcomes (Amelio et al., 2025). In crisis periods, healthcare financing can lean on outcome-based instruments such as Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) or health impact bonds (HIBs) to mobilize private capital linked to social objectives (Shiva, 2024; Williams, 2024). At the same time, the third sector often resorts to fundraising campaigns, social bonds, or philanthropic capital, mechanisms that combine donations, grants, and social-finance tools, to sustain its community-based activities (Olson et al.,2024). The turn toward stakeholder capitalism and popular reporting shows how new forms of accounting and disclosure can reinforce legitimacy, transparency, inclusion, and diversity management in both social and health contexts (Biancone et al., 2024). Furthermore, the integration of artificial intelligence and knowledge management into healthcare underscores the potential of technological innovation to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, provided it remains grounded in ethical and equitable practices (Mauro et al., 2024; Brescia et al., 2025; Ugwu et al., 2025).

This call welcomes scholarly contributions that address the intersections between social equity and diversity management and sustainability in the third sector and healthcare, examining how hybrid governance models, managerial approaches, and accounting systems can generate public value, enhance transparency, and contribute to more equitable and sustainable societies.
Selected contributions will also be considered for publication in the European Journal of Volunteering and Community-Based Projects.