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European Development Opportunities in Rural Areas (EDORA)

Project period: September 2008 to September 2010

Project summary: The EDORA project belongs to the first strand of the ESPON 2013 programme: ‘Applied research on territorial development, competitiveness and cohesion: Evidence on European territorial trends, perspectives and policy impacts’. EDORA studied the changes taking place in rural Europe, and their increasing diversity, to develop a clear and consistent rationale for policy to enhance territorial cohesion.

Role and priorities/objectives in knowledge transfer & innovation: To better understand the development opportunities and challenges facing diverse types of rural areas in Europe, in order to support targeted policy development, especially in relation to job creation and social change. Three key issues are:

  1. the need to better understand patterns of differentiation, between different kinds of rural area;
  2. the nature of the different opportunities for development which each of them faces; and
  3. the way in which such opportunities depend upon, and may be strengthened by interaction between rural and urban areas.

Results and recommendations: EDORA findings suggest that the “drivers” of most aspects of rural change are essentially ubiquitous, and that increasing spatial differentiation is principally a consequence of micro-scale (localised) differences in the capacity to respond. This variation is a function of each region’s unique constellation of assets, both “hard” and “soft” (intangible). At this micro-geographical level the key challenge for rural cohesion policy, in all but the least developed parts of the EU, relates to intangible assets, such as human and social capital, institutional capacity, entrepreneurial culture, and networking of various kinds. Results and recommendations are in the form of a collection of documents and tools including covering:

  1. Data input to the ESPON Database;
  2. Indicators offering additional information on the different types of European rural areas and new complex indicators on development opportunities, socio-economic situation and competitiveness of these areas;
  3. European maps of the typology of different rural areas, their demographic situation, accessibility to services, their development opportunities (particularly outside agriculture and forestry), different alternatives of medium-term development paths and the impact of these development paths on the competitiveness of rural areas and the national and European cohesion.

Language(s): Documents currently available in EN.

Funding source: Part financed by the European Regional Development Fund.

EAFRD priority area(s): Competitiveness of agriculture and forestry; Environment and sustainable resource management; Quality of life and economic diversification; Horizontal aspects.

EAFRD themes and keywords: All themes related to the priority areas of EAFRD.

Main target end users: Policy makers, rural practitioners and wider stakeholders.

Project study regions: 12 regions – see final report.

Homepage: https://www.espon.eu/main/Menu_Projects/Menu_AppliedResearch/edora.html

Project contact:
Project Expert at the ESPON Coordination
Unit: Michaela GENSHEIMER,
Email: michaela.gensheimer@espon.eu