RURACTIVE - Empowering rural communities to act for change
The Horizon Europe project RURACTIVE works with 12 pilot areas to establish local Multi-Actor Rural Innovation Ecosystems.It aims to empower rural communities towards a sustainable transition by co-developing smart, community-led solutions.
Factsheet
- Schools involved School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences
- Institute(s) Multifunctional Forest Management
- Research unit(s) Forest Policy and International Forest Management
- Funding organisation Europäische Union
- Duration (planned) 01.09.2023 - 31.08.2027
- Head of project Dr. Mariana Melnykovych
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Project staff
Mariana Melnykovych
Evelyn Tanja Böttinger
Nicole Güdel -
Partner
Staatssekretariat für Bildung, Forschung und Innovation SBFI
European Union
UKRI – UK Research and Innovation
Gemeinde Törbel - Keywords Horizon Europe; Rural Innovation; Sustainable Development; Törbel; Moosalpregion
Situation
Rural areas across Europe face significant challenges, including depopulation, aging populations and a growing digital divide compared to urban regions. These areas often struggle with limited infrastructure, lower economic output, and restricted access to essential services like healthcare and education, which exacerbates inequalities. Despite these challenges, rural regions hold great potential for innovation and sustainable development. With abundant natural resources and strong community ties, they can become key players in Europe’s green transition, offering new opportunities for inclusive growth and local prosperity. In RURACTIVE, the BFH-HAFL team is coordinating a work package on upgraded Learning, capacity building, and knowledge transfer approaches for smart rural communities. Special focus is dedicated to understanding learning needs and gaps, as well as competencies and capacities needed for enhancing rural community-led innovation. The team is also leading a task on facilitating multilevel knowledge and competence transfer among RURACTIVE Technical Partners and the 12 pilot areas, known as Dynamos. Additionally, BFH-HAFL is responsible for leading activities on co-creating smart,community-led solutions within the RURACTIVE Dynamo Törbel-Moosalpregion, which is one of the 12 pilot areas. Törbel is a small mountain village in the Canton of Valais, where the BFH-HAFL team is collaborating closely with local stakeholders to create a Rural Innovation Ecosystem.
Course of action
RURACTIVE adopts an interdisciplinary approach to support rural communities in testing and scaling innovative solutions for sustainable rural development. It is structured around six Rural Development Drivers (RDDs), which form a comprehensive framework to guide and categorise the solutions developed within the Dynamos. These RDDs include: Sustainable agri-food and ecosystem management; Sustainable multimodal mobility; Energy transition and climate neutrality; Nature-based and cultural tourism; Culture and cultural innovation; Local services, health and wellbeing. RURACTIVE focuses on creating smart and innovative solutions that combine various forms of innovation (e.g. digital and technological, social, organisational and governance, financial and business models) to drive rural communities towards a sustainable transition, ensuring social justice and inclusion, climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as biodiversity protection. RURACTIVE also works on building competencies in rural areas, including digital competencies – encompassing the knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes, and behaviors needed to support the development and implementation of innovative solutions. RURACTIVE has received funding from the European Union under the Horizon Europe grant agreement No.101084377, UK Research and Innovation under contract No.10069340. BFH-HAFL are funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract No.23.00395.
