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Introduction

This book is an outcome of the seventh Congress of the international network Regional and Local Development of Work & Labour/RLDWL,1 which took place at Renmin University, Peking, P.R.C. from 10 to 13 June 2010. The book aims at a mixed audience of Western and Eastern readers, because it affords the topic of sustainability from the point of view of the main Asian countries, on the one side, and from European and some South American countries, on the other side. To the Westerners it offers the unique perspective of some insiders in the public life of China and India, academics and practitioners at the same time, on the topics of environmental and social sustainability of their societies. To the Easterners a thorough and a critical analysis of the European Unions social and environmental realities and policies, and some hints on the reality of South America. It gives the possibility of a global perspective to every reader. The topics analysed in the book are related to the social and the natural environments sustainability: innovation, research and education on the one side and the life of working people on the other side; it includes also the invisible people of the informal employment and the economic migrants, namely in Asia. This book assumes a critical and realistic perspective on what is happening, avoiding hiding problems and difficulties, but communicating a positive message on the possibility to go further in achieving a better situation. In this perspective the analysis of the public policies is a key point; these policies, in the eastern as well as in the western countries show objective difficulties and social contradictions but also that a way forward is possible. The initial chapter is fully devoted to analyse China from within, i.e. from the point of view of academic people, often involved in the practice of change, in their country; it represents a unique perspective on the Chinese situation on some relevant social and political questions. The following six chapters are on sustainable innovation, trade unions and sustainable innovation, migration, informal employment, social security and social sustainability, public employment, employees participation, the role of education and research; for each article a broad list of references is available for students and researchers. We would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who made the Congress possible and by it also this book. Bologna & Peking, July 2011 Francesco Garibaldo & Dinghong Yi

1 For more information please check our homepage: http://www.rldwl.uqam.ca/aboutus/manifestorldwl.html.