Improving Rural Future Through Better Territorial Governance and Rural-urban Synergies

The successful proposal will contribute to fostering a sustainable, balanced equitable and inclusive development of rural areas, supporting the implementation of the European Green Deal, in particular to the farm to fork and the biodiversity strategies, the organic action plan, the common agricultural policy (CAP), the long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas and its objectives (contributing to make rural areas stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous) and to its flagship initiative “Research and innovation for rural communities”, and the EU territorial agenda for 2030.

Projects results are expected to contribute to all of following expected outcomes:

• Improved connections, strategies and governance arrangements that foster synergistic development and just transition of rural and urban areas and more integrated territorial policies and strategies in a growing number of localities;
• Improved business and innovation opportunities thanks to a more proximate, circular and green economy and renewed vitality of rural places through a better connectivity, improved valorisation of cultural and natural heritage, and stronger innovation ecosystems;
• Improved mutual access of rural and urban actors to services provided by either type of areas;
• Improved social connectivity, social capital, resilience, and capacity to face changes as well as of innovating, and increased understanding of the cultural connections between rural and urban communities and strengthened sense of territorial identity.

Rural and urban areas are interdependent and can mutually benefit from a territorial planning that takes into consideration their interactive relationship.

People, goods, services, information, financial capitals, energy, etc. flow between these areas, but these linkages are often neglected by policy makers that tend to deal with rural and urban issues separately. Proposals should aim at improving rural-urban cooperation, connections and planning for an integrated territorial development that adopts equitable measures to respond to socio-environmental disparities and foster sustainable growth.

Proposals are expected to support specific projects for developing rural-urban territorial partnerships to enhance the well-being of rural and urban people, increase resilience and favour a more synergistic/interlinked/networked development of rural and urban areas.

Proposal should also prioritise experimentation and innovation in domains that have been demonstrated to favour bi-directional urban-rural synergies and the development of a well-being economy: proximity (shortening distances/value chains including in the agri-food sector with particular attention to organic production), greener economy/society (e.g. ecosystem services and protection and restoration of biodiversity and natural capital, including nature-based solution – NBS), circularity (closing loops/ flows), services (improving social connectivity, new ways of working and living, pooling of and/or itinerant services), culture, landscape and heritage (building territorial identities as well as improving access to a valorised cultural heritage and cultural life) and mobility (sustainable and affordable mobility alternatives for rural residents).

Projects financed under this topic should capitalise on lessons learnt to further upgrade and future-proof policy frameworks and enabling environments.

Proposals should pay attention to the ecological and digital transitions, the potential of digital technologies as well as social inclusiveness, environmental knowledge and access of rural communities to good quality services and opportunities. In addition, they should analyse the impact caused by COVID 19 pandemic on integrated territorial development and address challenges that resulted from it.

Proposals must implement the multi-actor approach and bring together multiple science fields, in particular the social sciences and humanities (SSH) (e.g., economics, human geography, political science, cultural studies, etc.), and actors with complementary roles and experiences (e.g., service providers, transport services, public authorities, associations, innovators, small and medium enterprises -SMEs - etc.).

Proposals should cover a representative variety of European rural areas (e.g. rural-costal areas, mountains areas, remote rural areas) and build on results of relevant Horizon 2020 projects such as RURBAN, ROBUST (e.g., rural-urban learning hub), COASTAL, RURITAGE, RURALURE, SmartCulTour, TExTOUR, and FOODSHIFT 2030 and seek to improve/uptake governance and role models they have identified as promising.

Projects financed under this topic should create synergies with the New European Bauhaus (NEB) projects, facilitating ideas flows from urban to rural settings and vice-versa. For instance, some NEB projects could inspire good practices on the reuse of buildings in rural areas that can function as innovation hubs or build links between urban and rural areas. Proposals should allocate adequate budget and resources to implement this task.

This topic is open to financial support to third parties as an option either to select pilots for developing partnerships or innovative solutions aiming at contributing to integrated territorial development.

Finally, proposals are encouraged to leverage the data and services available through European Research Infrastructures federated under the European Open Science Cloud, as well as data from relevant Data Spaces.