Living Lab in a circular economy: resilient rural communities in 13 piloting areas

Monday 18 November 2019

LIVERUR research activities move in an area not yet been fully explored in Europe, the application of the Living Lab model in rural areas in a circular economy key. To date, LIVERUR research has focused on the study of the application of the Living Labs technique, on the analysis of business models that are most suitable for a transformation towards circular models and on the needs of entrepreneurs in the territories involved in the pilot activities.

Based on these results, the LIVERUR project is now shifting its activities from the research phase to the piloting phase. The objective is to provide the methodological basis and the work tools to the pilot territories in order to facilitate the involvement of local actors and build sustainable Living Labs.

The 13 territories that are hosting the piloting phase of LIVERUR project have now started engaging with the local stakeholders to build together a common idea of Living Lab. Consultations, focus-groups, co-creation workshops will be some of the methods that will facilitate to turn ideas into action. In order to support the local activities a full set of tools and guidelines are in phase of definition and will be provides to the pilot partners, among these the RAIN platform for the rural entrepreneurs.

In the last months, through focus groups organised in 14 different regions, the project partners collected information on entrepreneurs’ needs (224 interviewed) that will inform the development of the RAIN platform. Among the factors that affect the capability of a business to grow the entrepreneurs’ states the lack of proper premises, lack of experienced staff and shortage of capital. The identified areas where the entrepreneurs need advice or support are, to mention some: development of the business model, business strategy and the management and organizational skills; training for the staff; quality standards and their application; environmental sustainability and financial management.

Last week the 4th Project Meeting of Living Lab Research Concept in Rural Areas (LIVERUR) took place in Reggio Emilia, Italy. There, our 23 partners from 13 different countries gathered with the aim of sharing their deliverables and agreeing on the next steps of the project.

First day, Valeria Montanari, the deputy mayor of Reggio Emilia, welcomed the assistants and started the meeting. After that, two pilot areas of Reggio Emilia were presented as examples of circular economy and living labs. Also, three workshops were held about the implementation of RAIN rural business concept that has being developed within LIVERUR project framework.

On the second day, the meeting took place in Succise at Valle dei Cavalieri. Our partner, the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics, Rural and Mountain Research (BAB) presented his report on the development of territorial guidelines. Work package 6, formed by iED and Wellness Telecom, presented the report on the roundtables and the establishment of RAIN and ZSI organized a workshop where there was talk of exploiting results. To end the meeting, on the last day, a workshop was organized to review technical content and tutorial of financial reporting in SyGMa; Work package 7 presented the dissemination actions review and publication clusters update.

Our partners worked together to organize the next steps of the project, coordinated by the Catholic University San Antonio of Murcia (UCAM). LIVERUR project, funded under the European Commission’s H2020 programme, aims to expand an extremely innovative business model called Living Labs among rural regions and to develop the RAIN platform for implementing the business concept and connect the rural entrepreneurial community.

About the project

LIVERUR – Living Lab research concept in Rural Areas has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement No 773757.

The project aims at expanding an extremely innovative business model called Living Labs (LL) among the rural regions.