The EU’s lagging regions face significant challenges to transform their economic under-performance. Current ongoing transitions, such as digitalisation and towards a sustainable society, and the COVID-19 pandemic are accentuating these challenges. This is both creating new and exacerbating existing internal divergence within the EU. This study Marta Pilati and Alison Hunter (EPC) for the REGI […]
EU Cohesion Policy in non-urban areas
A new study by Stefan Kah, Neli Georgieva and Liliana Fonseca of EPRC, carried out for the REGI Committee of the European Parliament, looks at the role of EU Cohesion Policy in rural areas. The study analyses the challenges of these areas and discusses the extent and thematic orientation of rural Cohesion Policy funding. The […]
Social Innovation, Societal Change, and the Role of Policies
In this new paper in the journal SUSTAINABILITY the authors explore the links between social innovation and policy and the “triadic relationships” between the state, intermediary organizations, and local actors. Authors: Robert Lukesch, Alice Ludvig, Richard Slee, Gerhard Weiss, Ivana Zivojinovic Abstract: Political frameworks and policies have a strong influence on the institutional ecosystem and […]
“Which future do you want in rural areas?”
From May to August 2020, 3 436 people from 26 different countries answered the survey which was carried out by ELARD, the European association of LEADER groups, in cooperation with REDR, the Spanish rural development network. The aim of the survey was to find out what rural citizens and actors think of life in rural […]
‘Stay at Home Vacations – Staycations’ – The recording from the webinar of 2 July 2020
The second session of the Webinar series on Rebuilding local economies after lockdown focused on the impact of Covid-19 on travel and holidays and the local economies. With more people having vacations within their own country there is both an opportunity and a threat for rural, coastal and mountain communities. The webinar explored local communities can […]
‘Worsening inequalities / social inclusion’ – The recording from the webinar of 9 July 2020
LDnet organised, in association with RSA Europe, AEIDL and ELARD, a series of four forward-looking webinars on Rebuilding local economies after lockdown, from 18 June to 9 July 2020. The final session was on Worsening inequalities / social inclusion (Thursday 9 July 2020) – click here for the recording of this session – access password: […]
Post COVID-19 Futures; Changing Work and Re-Thinking Skills
Peter Lloyd has been among the active contributors to the series of webinars on ‘Rebuilding local economies after lockdown’. In a new paper, Peter and his co-author, Michael Blakemore, make a valuable contextual contribution to this debate focusing on work and skills. They see scope for making an opportunity out of the crisis and argue […]
Impact of Covid-19 on young people in rural and urban areas – Webinar 15 September 2020
On 15 September 2020, RURALIZATION is organising a webinar on the impact of COVID-19, to discuss the positive and negative effects of the pandemic and differences between urban and rural areas. The special focus of the webinar will be on young people and the event will count also on resilience stories from young people from […]
LDnet’s ‘discuss and debate’ session at the RSA conference in Ljubljana
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic this event has been cancelled. The next RSA Annual Conference will be in Florence, 25-28 May 2021. Then, the 2022 Annual Conference will be in Ljubljana. Elena Pisani and Stefan Kah LDnet are joining Urszula Budzich-Tabor and Robert Lukesch as speakers at the ‘discuss and debate’ session that LDnet is […]
LDnet special session at the Third Joint EU Cohesion Policy Conference in Zagreb
This event has been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and will be rescheduled for early 2021. The Third Joint EU Cohesion Policy Conference 2020, “Maximising the Opportunities for Cohesion Policy in Challenging Times”, will take place on 11-13 May 2020 in Zagreb. LDnet has proposed a Special Session on “Social Innovation and Local Development […]
Delivering CLLD effectively: a new guide on how to design delivery systems that strengthen the bottom-up approach
FARNET has just published its latest guide, on “Delivering CLLD effectively”. Although labelled “A guide for EMFF Managing Authorities”, in fact, it can be useful for the managing authorities of CLLD under any of the ESI Funds and it is, of course, of considerable interest to local development experts. The guide aims to address one […]
Implementing CLLD in the EU: Experiences so far
At the LEADER/CLLD 2019 Conference, organised by ELARD and the Portuguese LEADER network Minha Terra, Loris Servillo and Stefan Kah presented a thorough study on the implementation of multifund-CLLD across EU member states and regions. The revised version of the report (January 2020) is available here.