The 2026 edition of the European Week of Regions and Cities once again provided an opportunity to showcase, among other things, examples of local innovation and community action with potential relevance across Europe.
Four projects caught my attention as particularly relevant to addressing the challenges facing many rural communities and peripheral territories throughout Europe.
The FUTURAL project focuses on community-led social and business innovation supported by smart digital solutions. The SMART ERA project seeks to breathe new life into rural areas through smart innovation packages designed to combat depopulation and address socio-economic and environmental challenges. Its experience demonstrates that digital innovation works best when communities identify challenges, co-design solutions and use technology as an enabler. The RURACTIVE project aims to develop and introduce innovative approaches to a sustainable and just transition, building on the potential of rural communities and territories to become vibrant centres of innovation rooted in local resources, grassroots action, creativity and social inclusion.
Alongside these three Horizon Europe projects, I also noted ESPON’s smaller SMARTS – Small Places Matter and the Right to Stay – project, which seeks to shift the focus from deficits to opportunities and the distinctive assets of small and peripheral places: local knowledge, social capital and the capacity for innovation and adaptation. SMARTS is exploring how local agency, social innovation, place-based leadership and different forms of connectivity can contribute to inclusive development in places often characterised by demographic decline, remoteness and limited economic and institutional capacity. In particular, it seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of territorial success, going beyond traditional indicators such as population growth and GDP.
What struck me about all four projects was their potential to make a real difference in areas facing demographic decline, remoteness and limited economic and institutional capacity. I also noted their ambition to make a contribution beyond the areas directly involved. This prompted two observations on how that wider impact might be achieved.
First, spreading the word horizontally is relatively straightforward and can draw on well-established tools. Lessons learnt and opportunities for replication can benefit other localities through the sharing of good practice, dissemination of success stories, and interregional and international networking.
Second, influencing policy vertically is considerably more difficult. For local projects and initiatives to help shape, from the bottom up, the rules and funding priorities underpinning policies at regional, national and European levels, three elements seem essential:
- Clear identification of the relevant policy areas to which a project’s (or group of projects’) findings, conclusions and recommendations can contribute.
- Establishment of a clear interface between local action and policy, encompassing methods and toolkits, capacities, sustainability, governance and the wider enabling ecosystem needed to succeed.
- Active advocacy through stakeholder and representative organisations (e.g. ELARD) and policy forums (e.g. Committee of the Regions and European Rural Parliament), with which projects or groups of projects can establish and maintain links.
Introducing innovative bottom-up thinking into long-established policy frameworks, such as Cohesion Policy and rural development under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), is of course particularly challenging. However, there may be greater scope to influence an emerging strategy such as Right to Stay. This is clearly on the radar of some of these projects and could also be a priority for LDnet’s work programme over the next 12 months.
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