New report by BIF and SAB
What is a smart village? What is a smart community?
And are the EU macro-regional strategies (MRS) taking them enough into account?
The SMART ERA project partners Baltic Institute of Finland (BIF) and Swiss Center for Mountain Regions (SAB) published an insightful study on the role of MRS in fostering the development of smart villages and communities.
In the last 15 Years, the European Union has introduced four macro-regional strategies with the purpose of enhancing territorial cohesion, promoting internal cooperation, and addressing common challenges through tailored, place-based solutions.
Currently, these are:
- The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region
- The EU Strategy for the Danube Region
- The EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region
- The EU Strategy for the Alpine Region
Smart villages and communities are initiatives aimed at leveraging technology and innovation to address the issues affecting rural areas particularly, from depopulation to economic stagnation. MRS could prove a structured and collaborative platform for implementing these initiatives, but is this working? And to what extent? To find out, BIF and SAB also conducted interviews with the coordinators of the four MRS.
Read the full report here
