Developing research and innovation capacities of Latinamerican HEIfor the analysis of informal labour market

LATWORK project aims to create innovative research structures and Research Centres in the field of informal jobs and informal economy in Latin American HEIs.Latin American HEI, and particularly research staff, are requiring better resources and methodologies to develop research capacities to go forward in the analysis and knowledge of the endogenous phenome of informality in the labour market.There are several scientific and social motivations that are currently drawing the attention of HEI to the matter of informal in the labour market:(1) the multidisciplinary character of the topic, (2) the scientific motivation to overcome the difficulties to capture the informal labour market situations due to the lack of accurate methodologies (3) regular failures of small research efforts & statistical operators in definition, capturing and measuring the extent of informal jobs(4) the growing academic interest demonstrated from several knowledge areas of social science(5) the effects of this type of “labour relations”, far away from decent work definitions, on people livesHowever, research staff at Latin American HEI are dealing day to day with the barriers and limitations that mean the lacks of research resources, networking inputs, innovation capacity to create projects, and sources of high quality data, that keep down any capacity to lead research and analyses in the field of informal jobs and informal economy. As a result, the leadership of the majority of the research initiatives in this field are always dipped to external research operators no always qualified in the multidisciplinary scope and scientific culture.LATWORK is targeted at the development of the HEI innovation and research capacities to:Upgrade the research leadership role of HEI in the field of informal jobs and informal economy.Transfer high quality of research outputs in this field.Raise de commitment of researchers, academics and policy makers with the research on informal labour market.