This GI integrates, among others, specialists with backgrounds in History, Archaeology, Environmental and Technological Studies, and Business Studies. It develops studies on a wide range of topics related to economic, political, and social dynamics that drive the production of value over time.

This GI assumes that formal and informal economies have coexisted in the long run, creating innovative solutions that respond to challenges imposed by economic development. Investigates social and economic networks; traditional economic patterns and innovative, emerging and sustainable economies. At the same time, it identifies new values and challenges, as well as political expressions of a society in reflection.

The Group develops studies in Business and Labor History and the History of Globalization, analyzing, among other things, technologies and patterns of knowledge transfer, informal trade networks, the construction of political frameworks and social resistance to them.

The GI aims to establish relevant interdisciplinary research collaborations and projects, cooperate with diverse institutional partners, and organize innovatively focused international conferences.

The GI will focus primarily on the study of permeable economies, addressing this issue through a comparative framework. The Group will seek to contribute to CITCEM’s strategic plan on migration and permeabilities from a socio-economic perspective.

Analysis of formal institutional and policy frameworks will be interspersed with notions such as innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainable development, environmental concerns, cultural diversity, technological change, and individual creativity. Starting from Porto and the surrounding region, GI’s approach seeks to articulate local and regional challenges with national and global narratives.