Dr Janet Merkel opened up our Introductory Event where she gave a talk on the rise of coworking spaces in cities and beyond. Tracing the emergence of coworking, she underlined the structural shifts in labour markets that gave rise to freelance employment. She, then, illustrated the diversity of coworking phenomenon as collaborative workspaces (cws) differ in different spatial contexts in terms of functions, characteristics, and scope. Moreover, she gave an overview of the current gaps in coworking literature, stating that social inequalities in coworking are currently under-researched in this emerging multidisciplinary field of research.
The Introductory event of CORAL-ITN gathered all the selected Early Stage Researchers (ESRs), supervisors, and beneficiaries for an exciting virtual meeting of training activities. The five-day event which took place between 20 September – 24 September 2021 provided ESRs with an introductory view of CORAL-ITN network, its mission, and its future activities.
On Monday 20 September, the 15 newly recruited ESRs and their supervisors, together with representatives of the partners organizations met for the first time. This was followed throughout the week by keynote speeches, round table discussions, seminars, and open discussion sessions of each ESR project. CORAL Introductory event closed with an open discussion on the outputs of the event. A detailed agenda of the Introductory Event can be found here.
