SHADOW: An exploration of the nature of informal economies and shadow practices in the former USSR region

Extending from Eastern Europe to Eastern Asia, from the Caucasus to Central Asia, the post-USSR region, occupying almost one sixth of the world’s territory, has an immense potential for the EU as source of natural resources and potential market for EU companies. SHADOWS has been conceived to identify informal transaction in the region with a two-fold goal:

1) to construct an index to provide an accurate measurement of the level of shadow activities in our target countries

2) to conceptualise a taxonomy of shadow practices in the post-USSR region in a cross-country and cross-regional perspective

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 778188

SHADOW partners are located in the EU and former USSR region

University of Lund (Sweden)
University of Bucharest (Romania)
Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia)
Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (Latvia)
Levada Center (Russia)
SIAR (Kyrgyzstan)
Center for Social Sciences (Georgia)
Kiev International Institute of Sociology (Ukraine)

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Testimonials

  • The programme allowed me to go to Georgia and to establish contacts with the authorities and to start conducting interviews. Without the help of the host institution, reaching the people needed for my research would have been much impossible.

    Mariat Imaeva (Dublin City University)

  • The SHADOW project revealed to be a great opportunity for early career researchers. It brought me in a network of professionals and offered me opportunities to refine my skills.

    Gian Marco Moisé (Dublin City University)

  • The Shadow Fellowship was a great opportunity for me to interact with the local scholars and students, expand my academic network and have access to the university resources

    Diana Lezhava (CSS)