ERUDEL 2040 – European Rural Development and Empowered Leaders

Contact: simona.kukovic@fuds.si
Project Website: https://simonakukovic.wixsite.com/erudel2040

Short description of the project

The Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence ERUDEL2040 is dedicated to testing innovative educational and research approach and related materials as a mechanism for improving implementation of the long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas (2021) and European Parliament’s Resolution on a long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas (2022) and improving its global impact.

ERUDEL2040 enhances awareness of the EU and its rural development policy in the general public at large, facilitate future engagement and people-to-people dialogue and, in the long run, contribute to core EU values, particularly to the higher levels of political participation, transparency, responsibility, deliberation and others.

ERUDEL2040 engages a variety of target groups in its activities, i.e. academia, students, researchers, professionals (mayors, civil servants), state and local level policymakers and policy officers, local media, businesses, civil society, and general public at large.

Project main aim

ERUDEL2040 puts an emphasis on the European Commission’s priorities for 2019 to 2024, especially on priority six, new push for European democracy, focusing on the development of long-term vision that addresses pressing challenges and identify new opportunities for rural areas across Europe, as outlined in A New Strategic Agenda 2019-2024 and long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas – Towards stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous rural areas by 2040.

ERUDEL2040 has the objective to become the focal point for competence and knowledge on development and implementation of European long-term vision for rural areas until 2040. It is inter- and transdisciplinary, pooling and crossing expertise on more traditional EU studies (i.e. political science, economics, regional studies) as well as less common EU studies (i.e. sociology).

ERUDEL2040 is based on:

1. Open Innovation 2.0, an emerging paradigm where academia, state and local level policymakers and civil society co-create the future and drive structural changes, in this case also through co-creation of teaching materials,
2. Open Source model, drawing from and contributing to knowledge freely available to the public, and
3. theoretical and conceptual background of Community-led Local Development (CLLD), an European Union initiative to support the decentralised management of development projects, primarily in rural areas, by involving relevant local actors, including local organizations and associations, as well as individual citizens.

Results/Activities

To achieve the objective, ERUDEL2040 firstly, sets up educational infrastructure, teaching methodologies, protocols, and tools to systematically develop, evaluate, improve, and make publicly available both already existing teaching materials as well as the newly developed ones. Secondly, the EU studies teaching are strongly supported by multi-disciplinary research activities in the form of systematic collection of documentary resources and additional primary empirical data, both qualitative and quantitative on the topic of EU’s rural development policy, its implementation and impact on the development of European regions, fostering the dialogue between the academic world and society, including local, regional, state and EU level policymakers, civil servants, civil society actors, representatives of the different levels of education, the media and general public at large. This is the foundation for multi-level policy debate with relevant stakeholders and audiences, which result in a policy paper and summarized in a policy brief, which will enable policymakers to quickly identify which policy actions and recommendations are the most relevant for their environment. ERUDEL2040 will produce a special issue of high-ranking scientific journal with contributions of top-level experts, in an area that has so-far not been sufficiently explored.

These activities are carefully interwoven to incorporate principles of innovative teaching (including new methodologies, tools and technologies), debating activities, integrated collaboration, co-created shared value and rapid adoption of strategic vision of sustainable, smart and community-led local development.

ERUDEL2040 actions directly contribute to spreading knowledge about how EU rural development policy leads to benefits the daily lives of citizens in the EU and/or abroad, and how EU rural development policy influences the policy-making system, either at the member state level or abroad at a national, regional, or global level.

ERUDEL2040 also puts major emphasis on reaching out to students from faculties not normally dealing with European Union issues as well as to policy makers, civil servants, organised civil society and the general public at large.

Project is co-funded by the European Union.