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SMART community-led transition for Europe's Rural Areas

Project description

Digitalisation maturity assessment method to enhance rural resilience

Rural areas across Europe are experiencing depopulation as young people migrate away, leading to an ageing population, decreased job opportunities and deteriorating infrastructure. However, digitalisation and remote work present an opportunity to reverse this trend. In this context, the EU-funded SMART ERA project aims to bolster rural resilience by co-designing innovative solutions. Through co-design methods, the project will engage residents and stakeholders in designing smart innovation packages and proposing a unified smartness/digital maturity assessment. Its recommendations will enhance policy instruments and improve their effectiveness in supporting smart villages across the EU. The project will foster cooperation among pilot regions and enhance the ability of rural communities to address socio-economic and environmental challenges.

Objective

Depopulation, mostly characterized by emigration of young people, is occurring in rural areas all over Europe. This has brought to an ageing phenomenon, as well as the emergence of several structural problems such as fewer job opportunities, degradation of infrastructures and a decreasing offer of services of general interest. However, the revolution in digitalisation with an increase of remote and location-free work opportunities is offering the chance to redirect some rural migration flows back. Interventions are thus needed to take up this opportunity and build on trends such as multi-local living to promote new greener, smaller, sustainable and innovative growth models. It is there where SMART ERA intervenes. The project will foster resilience in rural areas, by upgrading and co-designing, co-developing and co-validating with local communities a set of smart solutions, integrated within Smart Innovation Packages (SIPs) able to tackle pressing socio-economic and environmental challenges and promote a community-led transition pathway that will empower rural people to act for change. SMART ERA’s main ambitions are: a) building the first large-scale European-wide solution for systematic rural data screening and smartness analysis; b) using co-design methods and techniques to involve residents and stakeholders in the design and validation of SIPs, as well as in the collection of old and creation of new data sources; c) proposing a unified Smartness/Digital Maturity assessment method; d) providing unique and timely evidence-based and performance-focused recommendations to upgrade the new local, national and European policy instruments and enhance their efficiency and efficacy in supporting smart villages across the EU; e) fostering cooperation among pilot regions, as well as among the four EU macro-regional strategies and improve their rural communities’ ability to address socio-economic and environmental challenges.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-IA - HORIZON Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL6-2022-COMMUNITIES-02-two-stage

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Coordinator

FONDAZIONE BRUNO KESSLER
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 926 050,00
Address
VIA SANTA CROCE 77
38122 Trento
Italy

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Region
Nord-Est Provincia Autonoma di Trento Trento
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 926 050,00

Participants (23)

Partners (3)

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