Avril is an independent professional researcher and a research associate with the Cultural Policy and Management Department at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She is an economic sociologist with experience in the field of cultural policy, culture and development and the cultural economy. Avril works in the intersection of academia and practice in fields such as culture in urban life, culture and the cultural economy in realising a just and sustainable development, fairness in international cultural cooperation, decent work and the rights and status of artists and cultural professionals as well as teaching pedagogy for post graduate studies in the cultural economy. She is an active member of UNESCO’s 2005 Expert Facility, the Global Creative Economy Council associated with the UK’s Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, the International Cultural Relations Research Alliance and on the external international advisory panel for IN SITU - Place-based innovation of cultural and creative industries in non-urban areas coordinated by the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme. She is a Guest Lecturer at numerous universities from Antwerp to Serbia. Recent public research related to inequality includes Informality and the cultural economy in the Global South published by the British Council, the Not a Toolkit for EUNIC’s Fair Collaboration project and Promoting Decent Work for the African Cultural and Creative Economy for the ILO.