Exchange on Services to Public in Rural areas and Innovation of Territories Erasmus Project

Project Title

Exchange on Services to Public in Rural areas and Innovation of Territories

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: Rural development and urbanisation; Research and innovation; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

The ESPRIT project studies the good practices in the field of services to the public in rural areas, in order to better support the stakeholders concerned by this theme in their learning processes necessary for the implementation of their projects. This issue is at the heart of the questioning of rural populations in Europe knowing that the progressive disappearance of public services has the effect of reinforcing the partitioning of the populations living in these territories.

The main objective of the project is to enable partner organisations from several European countries to learn about the practices and methods used by each of them to carry out projects in this field, but also to increase the participation of stakeholders in this type of project and, more broadly, to contribute to the implementation of the rural development policy. It is therefore a matter of developing collective intelligence through a real coworking on a European scale that will bring shared answers to a situation well known in several member countries. The ESPRIT project aims to contribute to the decompartmentalization of rural populations by setting up new services through training and developing the skills of the different actors working on this issue.

This project joins the priorities of the European Union’s rural development policy, promoting social inclusion, poverty reduction and economic development in rural areas. As such, it follows the Cork 2.0 statement “For a better life in rural areas”, which mentions the different issues related to the access to services and describes the EU ambitions to ensure the future of agriculture and rural areas, by seeking to develop rural capacities and promote their values and access. This statement also highlights the need to invest in skills, public services, infrastructure and capacity building to generate a vibrant rural fabric. In this sense, ESPRIT follows the Europe 2020 strategy to support the development of rural territories and their attractiveness for a “smart, sustainable and inclusive” growth through the promotion of employment, education, research and innovation.

With a diversified partnership having a national and European dimension (Leader France Association, Spanish Network for Rural Development, Estonian Leader National Network, Hungarian National Rural Network, Romanian GAL Tecuci Association), ESPRIT will contribute to bring new approaches and innovative solutions in the field of services to the population in rural areas, through a better transmission of the information on this subject in the territories, thanks to:
– Exchange workshops to support the appropriation of knowledge and encourage local actors to propose innovative multi-stakeholder projects and spread the methodology ;
– Communication actions to inform identified collective initiatives and innovations ;
– Technical visits of innovative achievements.

The deliverables foreseen by the ESPRIT project will contribute to the common knowledge of the studied subject. The collective work, as well as the various field visits planned will provide the opportunity to share and compare ideas, practices and methods, but also to decompartmentalize the current vision limited by the lack of this common knowledge. The actions envisaged will be a real added value to the approaches of innovative solutions through networking, sharing of experiences and joint research of the most appropriate methodologies.

In addition, the ESPRIT project offers a potential for sustainability beyond the ERASMUS + funding, through the intellectual and practical achievements that will be made available to rural stakeholders and public institutions, especially online. This sustainability will be recorded by a facilitated collaboration between project leaders and public representatives on the theme of services to the public. Hence, the target group will be able to better respond to the demographic challanges related to the desertification of rural areas by proposing innovative and concrete solutions. It will educate and motivate the main actors in rural areas to research and implement sustainable solutions. This will lead to economic development and better social inclusion of rural inhabitants.

Project Website

https://leaderfrance.fr/2020/07/24/quest-ce-que-le-projet-esprit/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 82811 Eur

Project Coordinator

Association Leader France & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Asociatia GAL Tecuci
• RED ESPAÑOLA DE DESARROLLO RURAL
• Estonian Leader Union
• Széchenyi Programiroda Nonprofit Kft.