This lab took take place on Thursday 20.2.2020 at Scotland House, Rond-point Robert Schuman 6, 1040 Brussels, after the SIMRA conference. It aimed to explore how local initiatives or local action groups working in the context of CLLD can act as a motor and platform for social innovation at grass roots level. There are many connections between local development methods and … [Read more...]
LDnet special session at the Third Joint EU Cohesion Policy Conference 2020 on 11-13 May 2020 in Zagreb
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 for an inclusive green local economy" Over the past few years, the awareness towards climate change has grown. Much of the … [Read more...]
Elena Pisani and Stefan Kah to speak at LDnet’s ‘discuss and debate’ session at the RSA conference in Ljubljana, 19 June 2020
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 organising on 19 June 2020 at the 2020 RSA Annual Conference in Ljubljana, on the theme of 'Researchers and practitioners working together to evaluate territorial instruments'. Following two 'special sessions' at RSA conferences … [Read more...]
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 of the key issues identified by CLLD … [Read more...]
Towards a Promising Season for Local Development – Notes from Porto’s URBACT CityLab and CITIES Forum
The upcoming new season of Cohesion Policy looks to be a promising one for local development; at least for what emerged during Porto’s URBACT CityLab and CITIES Forum (29-31 January 2020). The CityLab and the Forum touched upon key topics for the future of local development, including: the objectives and priorities of the Commission for the new programming period; the … [Read more...]
Highlights from the LEADER/CLLD 2019 Conference
ELARD and the Portuguese LEADER network Minha Terra have organised the last gathering under the Portuguese Presidency of Maria João Botelho in the beautiful town of Amarante in Northern Portugal, hosted by the LAG Dolmen. The workshop on 25.11.2020 served as an exchange platform to discuss the state of play in the member countries and to lay out priorities for the upcoming … [Read more...]
LDnet 2020: State of Play in Local Development and much more …
Following on from our general assembly, we are going ahead with a number of new initiatives. We are planning a workshop on Social innovation and local development: linking urban and rural approaches. It will take place in 20 February 2020 in Brussels, on the conclusion of the SIMRA conference. Peter Ramsden will lead from the urban and Robert Lukesch from the rural … [Read more...]
A lively debate on ‘Capitalising on diversity in local development’ at EWRC2019
On 9 October 2019, as part of EWRC2019, LDnet, organised a workshop in partnership with ELARD on 'Capitalising on diversity in local development' under the theme 'A Europe Closer to Citizen'. The workshop aimed at demonstrating that bottom-up approaches to local development, like CLLD, have succeeded in engaging ‘Unusual Suspects’; people left out of mainstream development … [Read more...]
The LEADER Approach and Social Innovation in Rural Areas – a Liaison?
R. Lukesch, H. Gassler, B. Ecker, L. Fidlschuster, M. Fischer, S. Mair, S. Philipp, N. Said[1] Abstract –The research project SILEA aimed at exploring the significance, extent and possible effects of Social Innovation in the framework of the LEADER Measure of the Austrian Rural Development Program 2014-20. The study leaned onto a complex mix of methods combining a … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
LDnet General Assembly: New initiatives for 2019-2020
This year's general assembly of the LDnet association took place on Tuesday 8 October 2019 in Brussels, with teleconferencing facilities allowing members and friends not present in Brussels to participate remotely. In addition to the normal business of the general assembly, there was a wide-ranging debate covering several topics led by colleagues, including: Building … [Read more...]
Resilient Villages: “Vibrant rural communities are not afraid to take risks”
In his current research, LDnet board member, Alistair Adam-Hernández examines why some rural communities are able to adapt to change better than others. During the European Rural Sociology Conference 2019, “Rural Futures in a Complex World” in Trondheim (NO), an international group of social scientists discussed how this concept could enable rural communities to harness … [Read more...]