The Tompkins Institute for Human Values & Technology of the University College of Cape Breton has been engaged in a thematic research programme focused on community business for many years. In a technology driven society, the interest has been to find new formulas that conciliate business techniques with human values. The Institute is presently conducting a major research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The Tompkins Director, Dr. Greg MacLeod, is widely acknowledged to be Canada's leading authority on community economic development, and is also the founding chairperson of these Tompkins projects:

• BCA Holdings Limited - With the money BCA raises from both private and institutional investors, BCA assists small businesses with the aim of job creation and keeping ownership in the hands of local people. BCA has had great success with businesses that would have been passed over for loans from more traditional banks. An exciting new project is the BCA Investment Cooperative.
  
  
• Learning Vacations - An opportunity for an English language vacation in Cape Breton, the ocean playground of Canada. The program teaches English as a second language in a summer of study and fun, with most afternoons occupied with excursions to various attractions around Cape Breton Island.
  
  
• New Dawn Enterprises - The oldest Community Development Corporation in Canada, and a Founding Member of the Canadian CED (Community Economic Development) Network. New Dawn is committed to establishing and operating locally-based ventures that contribute to the creation of a self-supporting community.

Thus was born EFICOOP, the escuela financiemiento de las co-operativas (the co-operative school of finance), which has been setting up a series of socio-economic relationships and networks between various Mexican agencies, community businesses and Not-For-Profit organizations working within rural community economic development. Their central activity has been to try and establish a structure that would support the development of a national and local revolving loan funds though the formation and establishment of a union of co-operatives among these Not-For-Profit organizations.

Another Tompkins Institute project is the Community Economic Development website which provides services and resources for community activists and academics interested in the field of community economic development. The site has news about the field ~ books and videos by Dr. Greg MacLeod and other respected authors ~ links to thousands of world-wide organizations, universities, government agencies, financial institutions, discussions, reference materials & more ~ information about the Tompkins Institute and its ongoing projects ~ discussion groups ~ news and resources for youth ~ UCCB Press ~ and much more.

The Tompkins Institute for Human Values and Technology was established in 1974 at the University College of Cape Breton, Sydney, Nova Scotia. The main objective of the Institute is to investigate the impact of technological change on society in general and, more particularly, on the Cape Breton community.

The programme of the Tompkins Institute is organized around the concept of institutions as technological constructs. The major analytical themes are the concept of the university and the concept of the business corporation. Examples of case studies are the University College of Cape Breton itself and community business corporations such as New Dawn Enterprises, GNP Development Corporation, and the BCA Complex of community finance companies.