Craft sector is a major player in the economy, through traditions, techniques and culture it has brought and made  evolve. It is a dynamic and growing sector, whose contribution to the dynamism of the territories is well established. These Very Small Enterprises link all the countries and carry strong values of transmission, excellence, know-how,  short circuits, proximity or even sustainable development ...  In recent years, there has been a new attraction for crafts by people with a first professional experience, wishing to  give a new meaning to their life and choosing crafts to retrain.  However, the craft sector still suffers from a degraded image in the eyes of the general public, which too often  considers that the crafts they represent are painful and offer a limited future. This negative image also persists due  to a lack of gender mix in many activities. In fact, the volume of women managers only reaches 27%. The vast  majority works in services and caring profession (hairdresser, esthetician) or in production activities related to the  traditional crafts (jeweler, upholsterer, textile manufacturing, etc.); few of them represent such sectors as  mechanics, building.  Entrepreneurship experts assume that women start fewer businesses than men because they face more obstacles  (financial, time, and even self-confidence). 

Curso de formação superior com módulos teóricos e metodológicos comuns, ao longo de 20 horas de contacto onde os estudantes são introduzidos à dinâmica de funcionamento de uma unidade de investigação e ao processo de investigação académica, com aplicações à área científica dos Estudos Internacionais. Programa individual de investigação e de trabalho prático com o acompanhamento de um investigador responsável.

The project aims at promoting in a strategic way social transformation through sport in the Mediterranean region, by focusing on sport as a vehicle for promoting work capacities and employment/entrpreneurship. This objective goes in line with the main priorities of EU policies, not only in the frame of sport, but also in integration, immigration, development, security and international cooperation. In this sense Sport in this project is not and end but a “mean” (a tool) for addressing the social and economic problem of low employment, and hence massive migration processes, insecurity and terrorism threats. The key need addressed by this project is the high unemployment rate in the Mediterranean Basin (both North and South Coasts), which can be efficiently addressed only through a long term oriented strategy aimed at strengthening the labour force capacity, including entrepreneurship. A second key need which the project addresses is the growing need of “empowering sport” as a tool for social impact-change, i.e. empowering sport as a means and no longer considering it only as a scope in itself. A third key need is promoting a cooperative and trustful environment between South Coast and North Coast in the Mediterranean Basin. The planned event in Egypt has the potential to become a little mile-stone in the cooperation dynamics. The high reputation of the Consortium including United Nations ILO ensures a high-impact perspective to the  initiative.

In spite of a recent slowdown foreign direct investment from rising China in to Europe has been growing exponentially over the past decade. It ranges from manufacturing, energy, utilities and transport, to financial services, real estate and sports and has been expanding from acquisitions of European firms to greenfield and portfolio investment.The perceived challenges posed by these investments has led to increasing political and media attention, including calls for EU vetting and regulation of acquisitions. Academic research on the phenomenon is however lagging behind these developments. Existing studies moreover tend to have a mono-disciplinary, national or sectoral focus. Over-arching conceptions of the interconnections between investments in multiple sectors and the often cross-European nature and intent of Chinese investments, as well as their (geo)political implications, is almost entirely absent. This does not augur well for the formulation of appropriate policy responses direly needed to engage constructively with rising China. In the light of these scientific gaps and policy needs and by bringing together the leading and pioneering researchers from across Europe and beyond (e.g. China, USA), the aim of this Action is to:(a) pool current and stimulate further research on China’s deepening economic engagements with Europe (b) develop an interdisciplinary, holistic, cross-sectoral and pan-European understanding of the variegated impacts and strategies associated with these engagements; (c) comprehend the likely political and geo-political consequences of these; and (d) generate input on the policy implications of these issues involving relevant agencies from the EU, member countries, business, trade unions and other interested parties. 

O delinear de políticas públicas, sustentadas por estratégias de cooperação e transferência de conhecimentos, é o foco desta rede. Pretende-se criar modelos de boas práticas adaptáveis à diversidade sociocultural do espaço ibero-americano. Com recurso a uma equipa interdisciplinar, o projeto pretende contribuir para o uso social e reprodutivo de memórias compartilhadas. Direcionados para as indústrias culturais e para o turismo, com recurso às novas tecnologias, a rede pretende potenciar projetos ligados às novas economias, direcionados para atividades como o turismo, a preservação do património e do ambiente, contribuindo para a construção de sociedades de conhecimento. Através do diálogo entre universidades e unidades de I&D, comunidades e instituições públicas e privadas, pretende-se contribuir para o delinear de políticas públicas e para formular propostas concretas de intervenção com impacto socioeconómico. Associando história, memória, cultura e novas tecnologias pretende-se entregar à sociedade, em open access, produtos concretos, para o reforço da responsabilidade social e da sustentabilidade económica. O entendimento da COOPMAR é o de que as dinâmicas históricas de longa duração, criadas pelo mar e em torno do mar, têm capacidade para reativar potenciais colaborativos na Ibero-América e contribuir para o reforço de políticas e iniciativas convergentes, com mútuas vantagens.

The Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) coordinates the European funded COST Action OceanGov (Ocean Governance for Sustainability – Challenges, Options and the Role of Science), chaired by Anna-Katharina Hornidge. It aims to bring together scientists, policy-makers and civil society representatives from 26 EU Member States to create and coordinates a research network for inter- and transdisciplinary research on ocean governance in the EU. CEI-IUL integrates this project as a partner in the research group of "Land-Sea Interactions", with participation of the researcher Cátia Miriam Costa. Some critical questions that influence the thematic focus of this working group are: Which interdependencies and interactions are taking place at the interphase land-sea? How are they (unidirectional or by-directional)? What are the pressures and impacts produced by climate change and human actions? How important is the alignment between marine and terrestrial planning? To what extent the policy guidance, plans and decisions are consistent? What are the interactions in the social, ecological and economic realms? What are the fundamental differences between the various ecological, technological, and social subsystems? How are they reflected and need to be reflected within the resulting governance systems? And what does this imply for joint governance?