The 2nd Regional Workshop of the Smart Rural 21 project will take place on 4-5 November 2021 at Stanz im Mürztal, Austria, entitled ‘Enabling future Smart Villages’ and with a focus on ‘Increasing Rural Communities‘ Resilience through Energy Transition’. The purpose of the workshop is to: Present the outcomes of the Smart Rural 21 project to […]
REBOUND – Fostering Resilience in Rural Communities
This new project has been selected under the Erasmus+ programme. It’s a two-year project whose implementation is due to start November 2021. The project is led by the Limerick Institute of Technology (Ireland) working with five partner organisations, including LDnet. REBOUND seeks to respond to macro- and micro-level imperatives and impetuses towards the promotion of […]
‘Regions in Recovery’ e-Festival: three sessions curated by LDnet on ‘Recovery through Community-led Approaches’
The first LDnet session on 3 June 2021 addressed new local development opportunities and challenges. The session started with examples of how local communities in different types of areas (rural, coastal and urban) have been able to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the COVID crisis and what lessons can be drawn for public […]
‘Recovery through community-led approaches’ – The recording and main points of the concluding webinar of 29 April 2021
The concluding webinar in the LDnet series on ‘Recovery through community-led approaches’ was held on the 29th April 2021. Participants in the previous webinars were invited to join this final session to discuss cross-cutting themes and draw lessons. Questions included: how can community-based solutions be spread more effectively? How can communities work at transnational level […]
LDnet webinars 2021 – ‘Recovery through community-led approaches’
“Recovery through community-led approaches” – 8, 15, 22 & 29 April 2021 What can communities do to spur the recovery from Covid-19? How can local action complement governmental and EU actions? Is engaging local actors the way forward to a more sustainable future? Following positive feedback from participants in LDnet’s 2020 series of webinars, LDnet […]
ELARD general assembly: Cohesion Policy in Rural Areas and the role of CLLD
The ELARD General Assembly was held online on 3 February 2021 and included an introductory presentation by Iwona Lizstwan, EC DG AGRI. Stefan Kah was an invited speaker. His presentation “Cohesion Policy in Rural Areas and the role of CLLD” illustrated the main messages of a 2020 study on Cohesion Policy in “non-urban”, i.e. rural […]
LDnet webinars 2020: Rebuilding Local Economies after Lockdown
Between 18 June and 9 July 2020, LDnet organised – in association with RSA Europe, AEIDL and ELARD – a series of four webinars on “Rebuilding local economies after lockdown”, on the following topics: Reinventing local shopping and hospitality New solidarity services Stay at home vacations – staycations Worsening inequalities / social inclusion The Covid-19 pandemic has […]
Local responses to the COVID-19 crisis: A new briefing on lessons for rural development
Several organisations have been collecting and publishing local initiatives in response to the Covid-19 crisis. We have updated our overview and are offering below the links to a number of these initiatives (see sections 1 and 2). We have also conducted a number of discussions in June/July 2020 through the webinar series ‘Rebuilding local economies […]
EU lagging regions: State of play and future challenges
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 […]