Enhancing the resilience capacity of European mountain regions through social innovation and knowledge sharing: selected implications from the H2020 SIMRA project

Abstract:

The rising demand of a growing world population for water, food, materials and energy puts increasing pressures on natural resources and ecosystems. Increased energy use has led to an increased demand for land and water. Environmental challenges, along with increased food and feed demands, will further enlarge pressures on land and water resources. Such pressures will be multiplied by the impacts of global changes, including of climate change, which are likely to further modify the availability and suitability of the resources and affect agricultural productivity and the well-being of communities living in marginalised rural areas, and particularly in the Mediterranean region, where the consequences of climate change (with a shortage of fresh water supply) are anticipated to be severe. Local level challenges (e.g. depopulation and ageing population) in such areas will likely intersect with global issues and require urgent solutions. The project ‘Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas’ (SIMRA), funded by the European Union’s (EU) Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, seeks to provide such solutions. The project is designed to fill the significant knowledge gap in understanding and enhancing social innovation in agriculture, forestry and rural development. This is seen as a way forward for marginalised rural areas across Europe and in the Mediterranean region, in particular, including non-EU Mediterranean; and the primary needs that social innovation via SIMRA is expected to deliver concern quality of life and human well-being.