Project details

The concept of smart villages aims to maintain or increase the competitiveness of rural areas through intelligent networking between companies, civil society and public administration. A central role is played not only by infrastructures or digital technologies, but also explicitly social innovations through new collaborations and the broad involvement of the population. For example improve access to services, promote short food chains or expand renewable or renewable energies to be expanded. Within the framework of the current Common agricultural policy (CAP), smart villages also play an important role at EU level to strengthen rural areas through intelligent development and thereby contribute to the objectives of the CAP and the European Green Deal.

The project " Building a bright future for rural communities through smart village education and development (RURALED)" aims to promote the implementation of the smart village approach. As a first step, it will examine how the approach is currently being implemented and the role of capacity building. Current experiences will be compared with different competence frameworks, for example for sustainability (GreenComp) or digitalization (DigComp), to identify capacity building needs. In a next step, analysis and learning materials will be developed to address the identified needs in a practical way. Finally, the materials will be presented and applied in at least one region as part of the project. In addition, the analysis results and learning materials will be published on an online platform. They will be available there free of charge until at least 2028 for interested parties from rural areas, regional development or adult education.

The project is being carried out by a consortium of five partners. The Institute for Rural Structural Research (IfLS e.V.) is responsible for coordinating the project. In addition, Agritour (BG), Ardmore (IE), CESAR (IT) and SMC HPHE (UA) are contributing their expertise in the field of regional development and adult education to the consortium.