PRESILIENT

The University of Groningen participates in an EU grant for the Marie Curie (Industrial) Doctoral Network "PRESILIENT," overseen by Abel Polese (Dublin City University). As part of this project, the University has welcomed two PhD candidates, Marta Avesani (Faculty of Law) and Namchocke Sasikornwong (Faculty of Arts). Both are supervised by Pim Geelhoed (Law) and Francesco Giumelli (Arts).

The PRESILIENT project involves 14 partners (including 7 non-university entities) and 15 associate partners spread across Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Its main objective is to establish a world-class inter-regional training programme focusing on informality in countries of the Global South. More specifically, the aim is to measure, address and design sustainable alternatives to informality. For Marta, the focus is on examining post-pandemic recovery in Ecuador, while Namchocke’s target country is Thailand. The project includes studying barriers that prevent a society’s transition to a more formal economy, including corruption in private and public contexts.

PRESILIENT aims at addressing the research question “Post-pandemic resilient communities: is the informal economy a reservoir for the next generation of digitalized and green businesses in the Global South?”. To do so, it includes several steps:

• Training the next generation of experts, proficient in understanding and tackling informality issues prevalent in the Global South.
• Conducting extensive research across 15 countries, generating novel data and advancing theoretical frameworks in the domain of informality studies.
• Producing strategic intelligence, facilitating the formulation of pragmatic policy recommendations aimed at addressing informality challenges.
• Facilitating knowledge transfer, including network events, academic-non-academic partnerships, secondments, and task-oriented teamwork, promoting interdisciplinary dialogue and synergy.

Duration of the project

2023 – 2026

Awarded grant

3,823,509 euros (of which 274,370 euros for the UG), obtained from Horizon Europe

Contact persons at our Faculty

Mr. dr. W. (Pim) Geelhoed
Mr. M. (Marta) Avesani
Drs. A.M. (Alma) Erenstein

Websites with additional information