LEADER has a long history and is still going strong. Robert Lukesch gave a talk in the final conference of the transnational project ‘LEADER/CLLD: Our common future’ on 4-6 November 2024, in Cheleiros/Mafra, Portugal, on the topic of ‘LEADER: Where it came from and what’s still in it’. This was based on a treatise in […]
LD Books & Studies
The road to the next multiannual financial framework
In a recent post we highlighted that the debate is starting about the next MFF of the EU and the theat it presents for local development in rural and urban areas. On 11 February 2025 the European Commission published a Communication “The road to the next multiannual financial framework” marking the first formal step in […]
FAMENET report: What does CLLD bring to coastal and fisheries communities around Europe?
This report, published in December 2024, follows a FAMENET survey of FLAGs and brings together information provided by around 150 FLAGs, as well as official information reported to the European Commission by national authorities managing the European Fisheries and Maritime Fund in 2014-2020 (EMFF). The report, titled What does CLLD bring to coastal and fisheries […]
Social innovation in rural areas
Rural areas depend on a wide range of economic engines for growth, as well as the quality of place to attract and retain people. Social innovation seeks new answers to social and environmental problems, using new solutions that improve the quality of life for individuals and communities. Social innovation can be a tool to create […]
Use of ‘factors of success’ in evaluation
According to Article 1 of the European Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1475 “When evaluating their CAP Strategic Plans, Member States shall define evaluation questions and factors of success to assess the evaluation criteria of effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and Union added value referred to in Article 140(1) of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115”. ‘Factors of success’ are […]
Expert report: Delivering high quality CLLD in urban areas
LDnet was engaged by the European Urban Initiative (EUI) to prepare and deliver a capacity building event focused on CLLD which took place in Timisoara (Romania) in June 2023. It was organised by EUI with help from LDnet, with a team of moderators, expert in CLLD and EU urban initiatives. Community capacity building focuses on […]
Towards innovative, inclusive and creative hubs in European cities
Three Horizon 2020 projects, CENTRINNO, HUB-IN and T-FACTOR, have released a policy report titled ‘Towards innovative, inclusive and creative hubs in European cities’. The report builds on the operational experience of the three projects in 23 pilot areas across the EU and aims to provide guidance in the implementation of heritage-driven urban regeneration approaches by […]
Rural/urban: Laying bare the controversy
In this paper, published in Geographia Polonica, Mirek Dymitrow of the University of Gothenburg examines the “rural/urban controversy”. Abstract Concepts are the basic building blocks of all knowledge, while the strength of any societal project is dependent on the quality of those concepts. As two of the oldest geographical concepts still in widespread use, ‘rural/urban’ […]
OECD local job creation review: ‘Unleashing Talent in Brussels’
The OECD has published in October 2023 in the Reviews on Local Job Creation series the report Unleashing Talent in Brussels, Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region has witnessed significant improvements in its labour market over the past decade. Local job creation has been driven by ample opportunities for highly-skilled workers whom the Brussels-Capital Region attracts from […]
State of the Art and Practices of Rural Community Resilience
The REBOUND project (Fostering Resilience in Rural Communities) has published a report on the State of the Art and Practices of Rural Community Resilience. The aim of this report is to provide an analysis of innovative processes and patterns pertaining to rural resilience across Europe. It is the first major output of the REBOUND project […]
The added-value of CLLD in Interreg
This study has been carried out by Jean-Pierre Vercruysse for Directorate D, DG REGIO of the European Commission with the purpose of better understanding the added-value of cross-border CLLD in the framework of Interreg. We publish below the Executive Summary of the study. The full report is available HERE. Community-Led Local Development The added-value of […]
Resilient coastal communities: a guide for FLAGs
“Resilient rural communities” is a topic we have addressed on several occasions, including research publications on rural proofing, articles on the core principles of resilience and resilient villages and LDnet’s participation in the Erasmus+ project REBOUND. We are now highlighting a practical guide on “resilient coastal communities” which was published at the final stage of […]