Entrepreneurship Education and Cultural Heritage Creative Management for Rural Development Erasmus Project

Project Title

Entrepreneurship Education and Cultural Heritage Creative Management for Rural Development

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Creativity and culture; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

Peripheral European rural areas are facing risks of ageing, depopulation and abandonment of rural heritage and resources, rising risks as fires and fires impact with fatal consequences. It is of vital importance to implement joint smart strategies to stop depopulation and empower with entrepreneurship education and internationalization to those that strive to develop projects in those contexts.

To create conditions for resilience in these fragile rural areas is urgent. Adult entrepreneurs who have bet for remaining, living and working in little towns and villages are key agents for their survival. Cultural Heritage creative and innovative management may be a link for tourism attraction and an inspiration for new job opportunities. Music festivals, museums, thematic routes and villages, historical recreations are examples of good practices where creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship can impact on rural places and areas.

A considerable effort has been dedicated to foster entrepreneurship education and attract tourism in these areas, but it has not succeeded to revert negative population flows. Only a few entrepreneurship projects succeed while many others, after great personal and public efforts fail and end with frustration and migration. To reinforce the resilience of these projects, it is fundamental to increase innovation, networking and internationalization.

For this, Cult-Rural+ seeks to introduce rural and neo-rural entrepreneurs to strategic training, networking, community of practice and internationalization. It focuses on the creation of EPALE and moodle community of practice for mutual and peer-to-peer acquisition of competences, for transferring strategic thinking skills and for favouring networking in order to build up strong inter-related communities and start up branding attempts in the areas involved in the project.

Innovation is a keyword in all the processes and activities of Cult-rural+. Team coordinators from partner organizations will be responsible to search the most innovative e-learning technologies and courses to offer participant adult learners.

Challenges in European depopulated peripheral rural regions are common but solutions to those challenges vary greatly from one region to other, so one of the most relevant benefits of trasnational projects is inspiration and transfer of innovative good practices cases.

Objectives:

The project Cult-Rural+ brings together rural municipalities, universities and SMEs working in cultural heritage for rural development. It aims to integrate a programme of internationalisation, entrepreneurship education and innovative digital strategies in adult education for local development in rural areas in risk of depopulation. It seeks to address the need for internationalization, entrepreneurship education, capacity building and networking in European rural areas for the promotion of sustainable and integrative development.

The project’s thematic scope encompasses a number of areas and its objectives follow the lines of the “Council Resolution on a renewed European agenda for adult learning (2011/C 372/01)” :

1. Competences up-skilling & innovative training for adults -in particular the low-skilled and older entrepreneurs and civil servants— to improve their ability to adapt to changes in the labour market and society in rural areas.
2. Glocal networking for sustainable local development (e.g. social eco-markets, European projects and thematic networks).
3. Entrepreneurship education and strategic thinking training to rural entrepreneurs
4. Entrepreneurship education and strategic thinking training to rural municipal majors and councillors for resilience, governance and internationalization
5. Coaching to adult entrepreneurs and civil servants for active citizenship and personal development through lifelong learning
6. Material/immaterial cultural heritage creative management for the creation of integrated touristic added value.

Target Groups

Cult-Rural+ target groups are:

– Adult low-skilled entrepreneurs showing gaps in internationalization, digital skills
– Little towns and villages´ majors, councillors or other functionaries
– Rural development agents
– Researchers (Demographists, sociologists, anthropologists, economists)
– Teachers
– Journalists
– Rural areas local inhabitants
– General public

Entrepreneurs and mediators will conform the core of Cult-rural+ target groups. The project will set up five integrated teams (one in each country) that will join virtually and presentially in a community of practice. Five international weeks including International Conferences and Linguistical Immersion will conform Cult-rural+ agenda in which participants will improve in different ways their internationalization skills.

Cult-Rural+ will award grants for the best adult learners trajectories as well as the most impactant and creative projects.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 189860 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE EXTREMADURA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Ruralidade Verde, Lda
• MUNICIPALITY OF FARKADONA
• UNIVERSIDADE DE TRAS-OS-MONTES E ALTO DOURO
• Taste Roots Società Cooperativa
• AYUNTAMIENTO DE TORREORGAZ
• Time Heritage – Afroditi Kamara & Co
• Institut d’Auvergne du Développement des Territoires