NRN INFORMATION

Austrian National Rural Network

The Austrian National Rural Network facilitates the exchange of experience and knowledge between different actors involved in the country’s rural development. The Austrian Rural Network has been fully operational since December 2008.

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Environment and Water, which is the Managing Authority (MA), selected a consortium of three partner organisations (Agrar Projekt Verein, Umweltdachverband UWD and ÖAR Regionalberatung GmbH) to run the Network Support Unit (NSU). The consortium hosts the NSU secretariat, coordinates all NSU activities and is responsible for the areas of agriculture and forestry (Axis 1), environmental issues (Axis 2) and handles the themes of ‘quality of life’ and ‘diversification of the rural economy’ as well as LEADER (Axes 3 and 4).

The overall objective of the Austrian NRN is to facilitate the exchange of experience and knowledge between different actors involved in rural development. The NSU aims to contribute to this objective by collecting information from, and coordinating between local, national and European level stakeholders.

Network Participants

The NSU’s ambition is to reach and include as many rural stakeholders and contributors as possible, hence no formal or exhaustive membership definition applies. In terms of the input of those actively involved, thematic support groups meet regularly to discuss programme priorities as well as the website, publications and events/seminars in order so as to address the concerns of as many stakeholders as possible.

Read more about the organisational structure of the Network [PDF ]

Current NRN Activities

The Austrian NRN focuses on the following main topics: agriculture and market; forestry; agri- environment; inter-municipal cooperation; and LEADER.

For each of these topics, the annual work programme specifies thematic Priorities, which were approved by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management.

These key aspects of activity are taken care of by the three different organisations, which form the core structure of the Austrian NSU.

Priorities and Activities of the Network [PDF ]

Activities with other Networks/Countries

• Contributed to the Relevant Experience Pilot initiative

The Network in 2014-2020 programming period

See details in the ‘NRN Mapping Report – NRNs in Transition’ (2014) [PDF ]