Existing Policy and Governance frameworks for smart community-led innovation

This report analyses over 100 existing policies and governance mechanisms which can be used to support community-led innovation in rural areas both at EU level and within FUTURAL Countries. It identifies unmet policy needs and gaps within current EU and national policies. It also identifies a set of policy recommendations to strengthen community-led innovation in rural areas and their transformative capability to deliver the EU’s Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas in these territories. 

Section 1 provides a brief introduction to the aim of this report and the relevance of community-led innovations for addressing rural challenges.

Section 2 and 3 describe key concepts used in this report and the overall methodology used to perform the policy analysis and gather views from experts.

Section 4 identifies EU-level policies and governance mechanisms which can be used to support community-led innovation in rural areas. It also defines their potential role, and their weaknesses.

Section 5 provides a policy analysis of enabling policy and governance frameworks within the six FUTURAL Case Study countries (Austria, Belgium, Greece, Lithuania, Spain, Romania). It also provides insights into policy needs and gaps which have emerged from interviews with 39 rural experts outside the project’s consortia.

Section 6 provides the highlight messages from the previous chapters and, building on these, it advances a set of policy recommendations. These policy recommendations are highly timely as the EU discusses the next Multiannual Financial Framework and future of the EU policies.