LDnet: a community of experts building bridges between research and practice

Local development is multi-faceted with practitioners split between the urban and rural domains, while researchers come from different academic disciplines. A community of experts dealing with local development could help harvest lessons learnt and overcome silo mentality.

LDnet and the European Commission are very keen on building bridges between research and practice and on making sure research results are used and benefit practice.

In this article Pietro Verga takes a first step in this direction with an initial overview on the state of play and emerging trends of the work of selected LDnet members and friends, active either in the academic or in the practice fields.

This overview begins with a reference to Nicola Francesco Dotti’s recent book “Knowledge, policy-making and Learning for European Cities and Regions: From Research to Practice”, and is organised along the following three main categories, with reference to recent a number of recent publications:

Research and reports on the EU Cohesion Policy framework and instruments:

• Haris Martinos on Cohesion policy since the Lisbon Treaty and the role of EP
• Ilona Pálné Kovács on local knowledge-based development
  
• Loris Servillo on CLLD implementation and a future research agenda
  
• Stefan Kah on implementing cohesion policy through multi-Fund CLLD
  
• Pietro Verga on overcoming EU Discontent in “Places That Don’t Matter”  through CLLD

Research work on relevant urban or rural local development case studies:

• Alistair Adam-Hernandez on a proposed framework for rural resilience & on resilient villages
• Pietro Verga on towards an inclusive and sustainable CLLD
• Robert Lukesch on SIMRA (social innovation in marginalized rural areas)
• Katalin Kolosy on RELOCAL (resituating the local in cohesion and territorial development)

Ongoing projects and initiatives for local development:

• Cristina Duarte  on the urban CLLD FatorC project
• Giuseppe Pace on the Underground4Value project (underground built heritage as catalyser for community valorisation)
• Katalin Kolosy on this year AEIDL 30th Anniversary (Y30) initiatives supporting citizen-led schemes
• and, Marijana Sumpor’s research and practice activities in Croatia.

Click below to read Pietro Verga’s full overview:

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