Smart Villages in European Union Policy. How to Combine Innovation with Pragmatism?

Oskar Wolski

Village and Agriculture (Wieś i Rolnictwo), 2018, vol. 181, issue 4

Abstract: Smart Villages are an approach to rural development that is currently being discussed by the European Union within the framework of the work of the European Network for Rural Development (ENRD). Since 2017, this work has been carried out within the framework of the established Thematic Group (TG) on Smart Villages. The TG co-participates in the development of the definition of smart villages, discusses changes in rural development policy and possibilities of supporting smart villages, and provides a forum for dialogue between different stakeholder groups and a platform for the exchange of experiences and best practices of smart development. The article presents an outline of the discussion that took place during selected TG meetings and indicates – where appropriate – its academic background. Its aim was to present the Smart Villages approach in the context of European Union policy. Hence, it briefly presents the genesis of this discussion and dilemmas concerning the definition of smart villages, and indicates the roles of local governments and the EU in creating conditions suitable for the implementation of this type of approach. The paper also includes examples of smart rural development projects. Smart villages are an alternative way of thinking about improving the quality of life in the countryside. They also seem to correspond to the direction in which EU policy is evolving. However, this approach still requires better matching of financial tools and instruments, which concerns both EU policy and national (regional) sources. The role of local governments in the process of supporting them is also important.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/344556/files/Wolski.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:polvaa:344556

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.344556

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Village and Agriculture (Wieś i Rolnictwo) from Polish Academy of Sciences (IRWiR PAN), Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().