An Exploration of the nature of informal economies and shadow practices in the former USSR region

SHADOW is a research and training programme with the goal of producing strategic intelligence on the region and train a generation of specialists on informality in post-Soviet spaces. Our goals are two-fold: 1) we intend to construct an index to provide an accurate measurement of the level of shadow activities in our target countries; 2) we aim to conceptualise a taxonomy of shadow practices in the post-USSR region in a cross-country and cross-regional perspective. Both goals are intended to contribute to a much better understanding of the threats and opportunities that the former USSR region, of fundamental importance for the EU, offers