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This issue of the EU Rural Review showcases rural communities across Europe taking the initiative to find practical solutions to challenges they face and seize new opportunities.

It explores how digital and social innovation can be used in new, creative ways to improve basic services in rural areas. It further looks at national and regional approaches to creating an enabling environment, as well as how the Rural Development Programmes can catalyse rural service innovation.

The content of this edition has been informed by the broader ENRD thematic work on ‘Smart Villages’.

This issue of the EU Rural Review explores some of the latest thinking and practice in how rural entrepreneurship can be supported to take advantage of emerging opportunities and latent potential in order to develop new forms of successful rural business.

Without seeking to ignore the many challenges facing Europe’s rural areas, the issue overviews new opportunities emerging from sectors ranging from the biotechnology to the experience economy and from possibilities created by new information technologies to changing consumer demand.

Finally, it examines how the Rural Development Programmes can be deployed strategically to take advantage of these opportunities, finding smarter ways to deliver effective business support and making targeted efforts to overcome some of the specifically rural challenges.

This issue highlights the relevance of EU Rural Development policy to wider societal challenges and the practical opportunities to deliver the greatest positive impact on the ground. It focuses on responses to the challenges of limited rural broadband internet access, global climate change and the current refugee crisis. It goes on to explore some of the new and developing EU policy tools: multi-funded CLLD; the European Fund for Strategic Investments; and the RDP Cooperation Measure.

This issue of the EU Rural Review showcases some of the different types of innovation and creativity from EU rural areas.