Smart Villages Toolkit

Smart Villages and rural digital transformation

This Thematic Briefing is one of the tools developed by the ENRD in order to assist Managing Authorities and rural stakeholders in designing and implementing Smart Villages initiatives in key domains. The focus of the document is on promoting digital transformation in villages and rural areas.

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Smart Villages and Renewable Energy Communities

This thematic Briefing is part of the series developed by the ENRD to assist Managing Authorities and rural stakeholders in designing supportive frameworks for Smart Villages initiatives in certain key domains. It focuses on renewable energy communities.

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Smart Villages: Rural mobility

This thematic briefing is focusing on rural mobility, aiming to highlight factors and conditions to be taken into account when designing the future policies to ensure that Smart Villages strategies enable rural communities to design and test mobility solutions.

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Smart Villages in Poland: ideas for designing support in the future CAP Strategic Plans

This briefing introduces the main ideas presented at the 11th ENRD Thematic Group meeting on 'Smart Villages' which focused on how to design support for Smart Villages in the future CAP Strategic Plans (SP) based on the ideas being discussed by Poland.

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Smart Villages in Finland: ideas for designing support in the future CAP Strategic Plans

Finland is one of the countries that is most advanced in preparing a support framework for Smart Villages for the next programming period. This briefing presents their proposal to design the future interventions in the CAP Strategic Plan (SP) in a way that is both simple to use and provides clear added value for rural communities.

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How to support Smart Villages strategies which effectively empower rural communities?

This briefing document offers some preliminary orientations on how to support Smart Villages – both in the current programming period (2014-2020) and, more significantly, in the framework of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) programming period.

It is targeted mainly at national and regional policy-makers and implementers to help them put in place both rural and regional policies which enable rural communities to respond to the challenges they face.

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How can LEADER/CLLD support Smart Villages?

This briefing document explores the potential role of LEADER/CLLD in supporting the Smart Villages concept, assessing the current LEADER/CLLD implementation barriers identified by LAGs and presenting recommendations on how these barriers can be overcome to fully exploit the potential of Smart Villages at the local level.

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How to work with Smart Villages? Orientations for LEADER LAGs

This document considers possible key steps for LEADER stakeholders planning Smart Villages development and provides recommendations for policy planners and LEADER stakeholders for the next programming period.

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Using non-LEADER/CLLD cooperation to support Smart Villages

This briefing document specifically explores the potential role of non-LEADER/CLLD cooperation for supporting Smart Villages. It has been developed by interpreting guidance and experiences from previous programming periods in the context of the Commission's proposal for a Regulation on 'CAP Strategic Plans' for the period 2021-2027.

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How to ensure that digital strategies benefit rural communities?

This briefing document looks at how digital strategies, that are being developed at different levels across Europe, can benefit rural communities. Digitisation can be a powerful force for change – as long as it is adapted to the rural context and implemented with the involvement of rural communities themselves.

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Business models for rural services

This briefing explores the different business model that can be put in place to enhance the provision of rural services. Additionally, it sets forward recommendations for selecting the right business model for rural services.

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Co-designing and co-planning village services

This briefing provides references to a selection of planning tools to help practitioners, local decision-makers, and community groups to design and develop sustainable rural services. Even though the focus is clearly set on rural services, each tool can equally fit other types of intervention.

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Smart Villages and the European Green Deal: making the connections

This document shows that smart rural communities are already providing inspiring examples of how to address each of the challenges identified in the European Green Deal at local level. It has been produced by and contains the personal reflections of Professor Bill Slee, an active member of the ENRD Thematic Group on Smart Villages.

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Smart villages in Scotland

This document provides the individual reflections of Professor Bill Slee on Smart Villages in Scotland and reviews the main objectives of the Scottish Government for sustainable inclusive economic growth, and the specific legislative framework to achieve it.

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The Broadband Handbook' : Facing the challenges of broadband deployment in rural and remote areas'

This is a handbook for rural policy makers and broadband project managers who wish to roll-out high-speed networks in rural or remote territories, effectively and efficiently. It aims to help these areas overcome the digital divide affecting their citizens, communities and economic activities, by taking a closer look at the success factors and good practices demonstrated by 12 rural broadband project case studies.

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