Concept & objectives

Concept

INSPIRE aims to support the sustainable and inclusive development of European rural areas by promoting social well-being and inclusion of rural dwellers and groups in a vulnerable situation and enhancing governance frameworks in rural areas. In particular, the project contributes to advancing in a multi-dimensional way the concept of social inclusion in rural areas, and supports access to high-quality social services by rural citizens through a series of awareness-raising, capacity-building, and pilot deployment activities that focus on social entrepreneurship and improvement of social services in a set of 7 different pilot territories (e.g., coastal, rural, peri-urban, mountainous). To realise its objectives, the project provides a novel territorial typology of rural areas, sets up and operationalises 7 “Smart Village labs”, and enhances governance frameworks and informed policy-making through E-Democracy and user-innovation techniques, to eventually deliver a dedicated Rural Social Inclusion Policy Dashboard.

Concept

INSPIRE aims to support the sustainable and inclusive development of European rural areas by promoting social well-being and inclusion of rural dwellers and groups in a vulnerable situation and enhancing governance frameworks in rural areas. In particular, the project contributes to advancing in a multi-dimensional way the concept of social inclusion in rural areas, and supports access to high-quality social services by rural citizens through a series of awareness-raising, capacity-building, and pilot deployment activities that focus on social entrepreneurship and improvement of social services in a set of 7 different pilot territories (e.g., coastal, rural, peri-urban, mountainous). To realise its objectives, the project provides a novel territorial typology of rural areas, sets up and operationalises 7 “Smart Village labs”, and enhances governance frameworks and informed policy-making through E-Democracy and user-innovation techniques, to eventually deliver a dedicated Rural Social Inclusion Policy Dashboard.

Project objectives

To provide an understanding of what social inclusion is and its trends and challenges in rural areas through research that includes hard-to-reach populations.
To map and benchmark (social) service policies, initiatives, and social economy models to assess their potential and limitations, informing policies through a “Services and Social Economy Atlas on Rural Empowerment”.
To enhance existing governance frameworks for social inclusion and social economy in rural areas, through Smart Village Labs.
To co-develop, pilot and evaluate social economy solutions for social inclusion and better service access in rural areas.
To provide policymakers with research tools and policy recommendations in a Guidebook on social inclusion, service access of vulnerable groups and rural social economy.

The key stakeholders for sharing the project’s results are categorised as follows:

Groups in a vulnerable situation, including migrants, minorities, elderly people, women, people with disabilities and informal employees
Public sector, regional and local authorities and employees in the informal sector
Academia
Private sector, social enterprises, local SMEs, private service providers and designers
EU-wide stakeholders, EU policymakers and EU-funded projects
Civil society