In a world where urban landscapes often steal the spotlight, Europe’s rural areas have quietly been making a resurgence. Beyond their picturesque charm, these regions play a crucial role in shaping the continent’s social fabric, economic vitality, and environmental sustainability. The SHERPA and GRANULAR projects, funded by the research and innovation programme of the European Commission, shed light on the importance of rural areas, the challenges they face, and the pathways to their revitalisation.
Relevance of Rural Areas: Where Europe’s Heart Beats
Stretching across vast expanses, rural areas might not always dominate headlines, but their significance is undeniable. With 80% of Europe’s land area classified as rural, they house roughly one-third of the population. Rural areas supply the heartbeat that sustains the entire system.
They offer a unique blend of tradition and innovation, often serving as the cradle of traditional crafts, local agriculture, and natural resource preservation. In a world increasingly dominated by rapid urbanisation, these rural strongholds are vital for maintaining cultural diversity and ecological balance.
From Threats to Opportunities: Navigating the Rural Landscape
However, rural areas are not free from facing multiple challenges. Over the course of four years, the SHERPA project delved into the difficulties faced by local actors in 41 rural areas across Europe. The findings revealed that some of the most prevalent issues impacting these communities and regions include depopulation, limited access to essential services, the digital divide and the ramifications of climate change. Yet, rural areas show a great potential for rapidly expanding sectors and markets. A few examples are bioeconomy or the renewable energy sectors.
This is precisely where both the SHERPA and GRANULAR projects come into play. Both projects contribute identifying practices, tools and key recommendations for stimulating the revitalization of rural areas. In SHERPA, this was accomplished through the engagement of more than 630 stakeholders gathered in so-called ‘science-society-policy interfaces’, leading to the creation of 20 Rural Policy Papers and final recommendations.
In a similar vein, the GRANULAR project established a multidisciplinary team dedicated to formulating, gathering, and utilizing innovative data and indicators to inform rural policies. In addition to identify the existing data sources (and benchmarking them) for rural revitalisation, the project conceptualized rural diversity and mapped rural typologies across Europe. This contribution comes timely with the beginning of the EU’s discussion on post-2027 policies.
Governance models: Pioneering collaboration
Effective rural development rests on the collaboration among diverse actors. The multi-actor approach championed by both SHERPA and GRANULAR emphasizes the need to involve farmers, local businesses, community leaders, researchers, and policymakers in a shared journey toward rural revitalisation. This holistic engagement ensures that policies are grounded in real life and that solutions tackle the genuine needs of rural residents. By nurturing dynamic exchanges between these realms, rural areas can capitalize on cutting-edge research while infusing scientific understanding with local wisdom. Science-Society-Policy interfaces act as catalysts for innovation, helping rural communities adapt to evolving challenges and seize emerging opportunities.
In complementarity with it, the GRANULAR’s project shows that peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange from front-runners to other rural regions can widen rural collaboration across organisations and countries. By identifying close ties between Living Labs and Replication Labs, as well as an ad-hoc Knowledge Transfer Acclerator programme, the GRANULAR project, put same basis to enhance the replication and upscaling of solutions.
Policy Perspective and The Way Forward: Uniting vision and action
Both the EU’s Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas and the Council’s conclusions (December 2023) underscore the importance of place-based policies for rural areas. Recognizing that one-size-fits-all approaches are insufficient, the European Union calls for tailored solutions that empower local communities to steer their development. In such a process, the EU acknowledges that rural regions are not just recipients of policies; they are active partners in shaping their destinies.
However, as we celebrate the resurgence of rural areas, it is crucial to acknowledge that the journey ahead is not without obstacles. SHERPA’s work on analysing the post-2020 EU rural policy framework reveals that gaps exist between the vision and rural policies. Despite the visionary frameworks, real-world applications often fall short. This discrepancy highlights the need for enhanced linkages between policies, where the grand visions of the EU harmonize with the grassroots realities of rural life.
Another main hurdle is the lack of comprehensive data and evidence to inform policies effectively. GRANULAR’s call for better and more “granular” data, echoes this sentiment. High-quality data is the compass that guides policymaking, helping policymakers identify areas of intervention, potential trade-offs and measure the impact of their actions.
The GRANULAR’s comparative analysis of territorial typologies in Europe is a milestone toward understanding rural diversity and filling the data gap identified by the EU’s Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas. As the report shows, most existing typologies focus on one dimension of rurality and may not fully characterize rural diversity, which is essential to broaden our understanding of policy challenges. Yet, novel concepts laying on the rural diversity notions and Functional Rural Areas are likely to shape the policy discussions and integrate spatial complexity into the post-2027 EU policy framework.
Conclusions
In conclusion, rural areas are undergoing a renaissance, and the SHERPA and GRANULAR projects are paving the way for their sustainable revitalisation. These projects shed light on the diverse challenges and opportunities that rural regions face, from diversification of the rural economy to social and technological innovation. As the EU emphasizes localised policies and collaborative governance, it is essential to acknowledge the work that lies ahead.
The rallying call is clear: better data, stronger policy linkages, and continued collaboration across actors will define the success of Europe’s rural revival. In uniting visionary goals with on-the-ground actions, we can ensure that rural areas flourish, not just as the backdrop of postcards but as the beating heart of a resilient, interconnected continent.
The SHERPA and GRANULAR received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement (101061068, 862448). UK participants in the GRANULAR project are supported by UKRI (10039965, 10041831). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Authors: Carla Lostrangio
