Madrid 7 -9 March FARO EU Kick-off Meeting Introduction to the project by Marta Pérez-Soba

Madrid 7 -9 March Overview presentation Project characteristics Project frame Aim Questions to be answered The Work Packages Challenges Time schedule

Madrid 7 -9 March Project characteristics FP6 STREP Scientific Support to Policies 11 partners (+ 3 sub-contractors) from 5 EU countries Interdisciplinary team January 2007 – December M€ Scientific coordination: Alterra (NL)

Madrid 7 -9 March Partners 1 Alterra 2 LEI 3 UoE 7 WU 4 IAFE-NRI 5 UNEW 6 UNIBUC- ECO 8 JRC 9 REDR 10 SRI 11 WING 12 MNP 13 IGSO 14 Grupo Alba

Madrid 7 -9 March Project frame Policies related to Rural Development Background: Cohesion Policy in Support of Growth and Jobs: Community Strategic Guidelines, User: EU policy makers (DG AGRI/DG REGIO) Coverage: EU27 Constraint: use existing pan European data

Madrid 7 -9 March Aim: ‘The lighthouse’ To provide guidance for future rural development policies in Europe To provide guidance for future rural development policies in Europe

Madrid 7 -9 March Questions to be answered What are major trends and driving forces affecting rural regions?

Madrid 7 -9 March In Spain abandonment of agricultural practices from 1992 – 2002: 2 M ha agricultural land changed into forest, natural grasslands and no man’s land

Madrid 7 -9 March Questions to be answered What are major trends and driving forces affecting rural regions? At which scales do they operate?

Madrid 7 -9 March Scaling Integrating socio- economic and bio- physical variables Defining the appropriate spatial scale to combine all the variables considered in a meaningful way

Madrid 7 -9 March Biophysical & socio-economic variables have a different spatial scale NUTS-2 regions LANMAP2

Madrid 7 -9 March Questions to be answered What are major trends and driving forces affecting rural regions? At which scales do they operate? Which of these processes are amenable to change through RD policies and where? i.e. where EU support for rural development will create the most value added at EU level? How rural policies might be adapted in the future to take account of these processes?

Madrid 7 -9 March The Work Packages WP 1 Coordinatio n and managemen t ALTERRA WP 1 Coordinatio n and managemen t ALTERRA WP 2 Past trends and patterns LEI WP 2 Past trends and patterns LEI WP 3 Institutions and the governance of rural development and the role of ICT NCL WP 3 Institutions and the governance of rural development and the role of ICT NCL WP 4 Foresight Analysis UCL WP 4 Foresight Analysis UCL WP 5 Integrated evaluation IPTS WP 5 Integrated evaluation IPTS WP 6 Communica tion and disseminati on ALTERRA WP 6 Communica tion and disseminati on ALTERRA

Madrid 7 -9 March Challenges Describe the different ruralities in Europe

Madrid 7 -9 March Lapland Southern Alps Scotland Andalucia

Madrid 7 -9 March Challenges Describe the different ruralities in Europe (the framework) How governance and ICT influence RD (conference "Bridging the Broadband Gap: Benefits of broadband for rural areas and less developed regions": May 2007) Assess future uncertainty: conditional probabilistic futures (versus deterministic scenarios) Integration of quantitative (model chain) and qualitative (SWOT) approaches Case studies representative of the EU ruralities Integrated evaluation of foresight results Communicate science to policy makers

Madrid 7 -9 March FARO EU time schedule (Meetings) Project start Project end Workshops scenario Kick-off Project meeting 1 Project meeting 2 Final Project meeting Workshop validation modelling Workshop validation integrative analysis

Madrid 7 -9 March FARO EU time schedule (WPs)

Madrid 7 -9 March Questions?

Madrid 7 -9 March Spatial Regional Framework Determine range of socio-economic indicators for NUTS regions Overlap NUTS regions with Environmental zones Carry out PCA by Env zones to identify best regional indicators Clusters according to variability Describe the average socio-economic and land cover characteristics Identify known inconsistencies Identify key issues for RD