In Portugal, mechanisms aimed at debtors in a difficult economic situation or in imminent insolvency (namely, the special proceedings for revitalization and the special proceedings for a payment agreement) have a marginal use when compared to insolvency proceedings and since 2016 there has been a sharp and steady decline in the number of special proceedings for revitalization issued. Furthermore, the average length of insolvency proceedings largely exceeds 2 years. Given these elements, our research aims to address the following questions: (a) does the length of insolvency proceedings exceed what would be expected according to the law? (b) if so, what are the underlying causes? (c) how to explain the low use of pre-insolvency mechanisms? (d) what are the reasons for the steady decline in the number of special proceedings for revitalization issued in the last few years? The project combines multiple perspectives as it includes legal, economic and sociological methods of analysis. This cross-cutting approach is intended to provide an overview of the causes that affect the length of insolvency proceedings and the use of pre-insolvency mechanisms. Such an analysis will be a major contribution to the prescriptive dimension of the project: the development of proposals aimed at promoting the use of pre-insolvency mechanisms (thus contributing to the recovery of viable debtors) and at reducing the length of insolvency proceedings, thereby mitigating its serious detrimental effects. Team:  Mariana Machado França Gouveia Sande Nogueira (PI), CEDIS  João Pedro Ramos de Almeida Pinto-Ferreira (Co-PI), CEDIS  Guilherme Brandão Salazar Loureiro Gomes, CEDIS  Higina Maria Almeida Orvalho da Silva Castelo, CEDIS  Lua Ana Mota Santos, CEDIS and CIES-Iscte Patrícia Andrea Rodrigues André, CEDIS and Dinâmia'CET-Iscte Susana Alexandra Lopes da Costa Santos, CIES-Iscte Teresa Cristina Nunes Violante Ferreira Nascimento, CEDIS   

The Covid19 outbreak has impacted negatively on the gendered and racial inequalities in science. The closures of schools and care homes imposed more care responsibilities on women, which might have translated in a reduction of their productivity vis-à-vis their male counterparts. Drawing from a multi-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods with data triangulation, SAGE19 aims at analysing the consequences of the pandemic on gender inequality in academia and its aftermath.