A recent ILO report estimates that two billion workers are active in the informal economy. The relevance of the phenomenon is even higher if the secondary effects of informal employment are considered and is likely to get worse, given that climate change has come to increasingly affect those living in conditions of vulnerability, pushing more people into the informal sector. Although informal economic activity is widely present in Europe and North America, constituting around 20% of the national GDP, developing and emerging economies suffer disproportionately from this phenomenon. For example, the ILO estimates that Africa, Asia and Latin America host 93% of the world’s informal employment and have been on the rise due to the Covid-19 crisis. Altogether, the World Bank and ILO estimate that almost a billion people entered precarious work because of the pandemic, with women and young people being the most affected categories. PRELAB network includes academic and development organisations, all with a major focus on informality and development, to: 1) Train researchers in methodologies to measure informality in a global perspective; 2) Conceptualise ways to apply qualitative and quantitative methodologies that were successfully used Eastern Europe and Central Asia to our target countries in the Asia Pacific region; 3) Produce a consistent narrative on how to measure and tackle informality in emerging economies; and 4) Engage with policymakers and business actors, in addition to the scientific community, to identify ways to apply these approaches into development practice worldwide.

The project aims to raise excellence in science and value creation through deeper and geographically inclusive cooperation in alliance of higher education and research institutions in 5 widening and 4 science-leading European countries, to support the shift towards a regenerative economy paradigm. Global competitiveness and visibility of the HE institutions in widening countries are to be improved by creating critical knowledge and research mass through cooperation with leading European research institutions in the area of the regenerative economy directly aimed towards the twin green and digital transitions. This is to be achieved through clearly defined and measurable sub-goals: -To achieve a more balanced circulation of talents leading to a diverse and inclusive research community and innovative research outcomes, by organising exchanges, short visits and conferences participations; -To reinforce the role of HE institutions in innovative ecosystems, by bringing additional expertise and resources by European leading research-intensive institutions to support the development of innovative ideas; -To mainstream practices and tools for open knowledge and data sharing; -To make progress toward reforming the research assessment system, including career assessment; -To improve links between science and business by providing access to networks, resources and expertise to support the development of business partnerships and collaborations; -To promote gender equality, diversity and inclusiveness; -To accelerate society’s green and digital transition to support ERA Policy Agenda action 11; -To encourage collaboration with third-country entities to support ERA Policy Agenda action 9. The project contributes to the aims of empowering universities as actors of change in R&I by promoting cross-sectoral collaboration between universities and other actors in the R&I ecosystem, improving their knowledge valorisation capabilities and contributing to raising excellence in science.

Across the globe, widespread research continues to reaffirm that women face inferior income opportunities when compared with men. Women are less likely to work for income or to actively seek work; they have fewer opportunities for business expansion or career progression; they are disproportionately more likely to be homemakers yet household labour is not remunerated nor considered to be ‘work’. Women make up around half of the economically active population, however they are underrepresented in various fields, including entrepreneurship. According to World Bank data, in 2022 the global labour force participation rate for women was just over 50% compared to 80% for men. Globally, female labour force participation has not increased greatly over the last three decades and male/female disparities remain stark especially across large swathes of Asia. This is despite the fact that Asia is widely regarded as the engine for global economic growth. International organisations estimate that if women had equal representation in all labour markets, GDP could increase to approximately $136 trillion by 2025. At the same time female entrepreneurship and indicators for gender equality appear to go hand-in-hand, making both key factors for a country's economic development. With a total of 20 partners (10 from Europe and 10 from Asia, including 8 non-academic partners) FEMENA draws on world-class expertise to design an inter-disciplinary, international and inter-sectoral research and training programme that addresses the central questions of how female entrepreneurship is framed, fostered, and promoted across Asia. Four phases of secondments will develop an integrated methodological framework based on Amartya Sen's capability approach to explore how individuals, across a range of contexts and operating in difference sectors, assess their opportunities and abilities rather than applying categories that risk being too context-specific or that ignore path dependency effects.

In addition to the almost 2bln workers already active in the informal sector, World Bank and ILO estimate that the pandemic might have put at risk of precarious employment 500mln-1.5bln more. These losses, and related consequences, are not evenly distributed given that Africa, Asia and Latin America is where 93% of the world’s informal employment is located and where post-pandemic crisis is likely to hit harder (especially women, migrants and young people). Yet, the concern is global. Indeed, besides vulnerability and precariousness at individual and community levels, informality also eventually reduces state capacity and the ability of institutions to design and implement policies that properly address social, economic and environmental issues (i.e. SDGs) in a long term perspective. Accordingly, informality-related challenges have been devoted a great deal of attention and political statements. But seldom have these statements been followed by concrete instructions, guidelines or evidence-based policies to tackle informality across the world. Starting from this gap, PRESILIENT is a large network comprising 14 partners (of which 7 non-academic) and 15 associated partners located in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America committed to delivering the a world class cross-regional training on informality in the Global South to: measure it, address it, find viable and sustainable alternatives. By doing this, we have committed to four main objectives: O.1 train the next generation of experts on informality in the global south. O.2 carry out a research spanning 15 different countries and to produce novel data and significant theoretical advancements in the field. O.3 produce strategic intelligence that can be used to provide practical policy recommendations O.4 enable multi-directional knowledge transfer through network events, pairing of academic and non-academic partners (who will jointly supervise each fellow), secondment and task-based teamwork.