Innovative public service provision in rural areas: Mutual learning between Germany, Sweden, Austria and Scotland The InDaLE research project In many structurally weak and sparsely populated rural regions of Europe, demographic change coupled with unstable local finances are pushing public services to the brink of their feasibility. With this, the quality of life in such […]
Events
Intro for events
Michael Dower (1933 – 2022)
We are very saddened at the news of the death of Michael Dower, a great champion of rural communities, leading light in rural development, long-standing friend and member of LDnet. Michael passed away on 7 November 2022. He had a long and fruitful life. He trained as a chartered surveyor and town planner followed by […]
European Rural Parliament 2022 – Resilience to Crises, Security and Solidarity
Report, Joint Declaration & Workshop (Does anyone listen?) The fifth meeting of the European Rural Parliament took place in Kielce, Poland, from 12 to 15 September 2022. The European Rural Parliament is a process aimed to strengthen the voice of rural communities in Europe, to promote self-help, solidarity, exchange and cooperation between rural communities and […]
Handbook of Territorial and Local Development Strategies launch
Inspiring experiences and future opportunities The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has recently published a “Handbook of Territorial and Local Development Strategies”. It is addressed to both managing authorities and to strategy owners and other local stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of CLLD, ITI or other territorial instruments, especially in non-urban areas. […]
RSA research funding opportunities
The Regional Studies Association (RSA) provides a range of research funding opportunities to suit different career stages. Forthcoming grant and award deadlines: 2022 Small Grant on Pandemics, Cities, Regions & Industry This scheme aims to support a discrete piece of regional studies and/or regional science research on the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) on regions, […]
Rural Pact: European and local leaders join forces to make local communities stronger
The Rural Pact conference, 15-16 June 2022, brought together EU, national, and regional politicians along with local authorities, social and economic stakeholders in a participatory event that reflected the rural vision’s ambition and bottom-up character. It sought to engage participants in designing the governance of the Rural Pact and gather commitments for the achievement of […]
CLLD – Giving value to coastal landscapes from the bottom up
On 27 May an event organised by the Chair of Landscape Architecture of the Estonian University of Life Sciences, within the series of open seminars “Exploring Landscape Boundaries”, offered an interesting opportunity for an exchange between research and practice in local development. In the seminar on “Community-Led Local Development – giving value to coastal landscapes […]
Rural Europe – European Parliament event
Book Launch on the future of Rural Europe with Special Guests. This hybrid event on 7 June 2022, 16:30-18:30 CEST live from the European Parliament, with physical participation in room WEISS N3.5, with interpretation available in English and French. It marked the launch of the new book Rural Europe Takes Action – No more business […]
Evaluation study on the ENRD and NRNs’ contribution to the implementation of the EU Rural Development policy
DG AGRI has commissioned consultants to carry out an evaluation study aimed to assess how and to what extent the ENRD and the NRNs contributed to the implementation of the EU Rural Development policy in the 2014-2020 programming period. As part of this study, four surveys were designed to obtain inputs into the networks’ results […]
LDnet webinar on ‘Local Development – Lessons for the future from recent research and practice’
LDnet was for the second year a partner in the RSA’s ‘Regions in Recovery’ e-Festival, RinR22 – see below for more information. As part of RinR22 we organised a special session (Ref: SS 23) on 24 March 2022 focusing on bridging research, policy and practice in local development. The recording of the LDnet session can […]
REBOUND: Experts in rural community resilience wanted!
Erasmus+ project ‘REBOUND’ focuses on compiling state-of-the-art knowledge in the field of rural community resilience and well-being After kicking off in February 2022 the REBOUND partnership, including LDnet, has begun the initial planning and work on the project. In order to place the main objectives of the project on a firm theoretical but also practical […]
The ‘Debate on the future of local development and LDnet’s strategy’- the full recording
The Annual Assembly of LDnet took place online on Wednesday 2 February 2022. It was attended by 40 practitioners and researchers and included a lively debate on the future of local development and LDnet’s strategy with contributions from many of the participants. The full recording of the debate is now available at this LINK. The […]