Faro - Newsletter

Welcome to the first FARO-EU newsletter. We are sending this newsletter to keep you informed about the latest developments in our project. If you are interested in receiving more information on our project, please get in touch with us.

The newsletter is available through the FARO-EU website http://www.FARO-EU.org

We welcome suggestions and feedback and trust that you find the newsletter of interest. In the meantime, enjoy!

From the coordinator:
Dr. ir. Marta Pérez-Soba
Phone: 31 317 474787
Email: marta.perezsoba@wur.nl

 

  

     Table of contents

Forth Coming Events
Next Project meetings:   PM3 - April 2008 - Krakow
PM4 - October 2008 - The Hague		    

Providing guidance for the future policies of rural areas

In Spanish FARO means lighthouse. The aim of the FARO EU project is to provide guidance for future development policies in Europe, mainly by answering the following questions:

 
  • What are the major trends and driving forces affecting rural regions?
  • On what scale do these processes operate?
  • Which of these processes are amenable to change through RD policies?
  • How might rural policies be adapted in the future to take account of these processes?

 

The results of the FARO EU project will help to lessen present uncertainties and contribute to defining appropriate EU rural policies...read more

Setting the scene - Kick-off meeting Madrid, March 2007
  On 7-9 March, the Spanish Network for Rural Development (Red Española de Desarrollo Rural – REDR) hosted the first project meeting. It was attended by representatives of all 10 partners as well as the project officer from the European Commission, Lucas Janssen. The meeting also took stock of previous projects experiences in related EU or national projects.The event focused on getting a  common  

 

 


 

understanding of the project objectives and provided an excellent forum to discuss the definition of rural areas and rural development...read more

The next Rural Policies on the horizon- Policy Workshop Brussels, September 2007
The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research hosted a Scenario Workshop for Rural Areas organized by the FARO-EU project. Around 40 participants - including policy makers from DG Agriculture,  DG Regio and European Parliament, members of
   the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR) group, representative of the ESPON project, members of the Scientific Advisory Group and project members- met to identify the key policy needs for rural areas and... read more  

 

A holistic approach – 2nd FARO-EU Project Meeting-Edinburgh, September 2007
The Second FARO-EU project meeting was held in the beautiful city of Edinburgh at the Old Library of the Institute of Geography on 26-28 September 2007. The project was jointly organised by the School of Geosciences of Edinburgh University and Alterra, the project coordinator.    This was a very well attended event, with about 20 participants representing the 10 partners and three subcontractors as well as the project officer from the European Commission, Lucas Janssen.. The aim was to look at how progress was made... read more    
FARO-EU Case Studies – Unlocking the future of rural areas through the regional and local stakeholders
Case studies will be carried out in at least six countries during the life of the FARO-EU project, covering the main geographical regions in Europe: Atlantic (UK, NL), Continental (Poland and Romania), Mediterranean (Spain), Scandinavian (Finland) and the Alpine (still to be decided).   The case studies willplay two fundamental roles within the project as a whole: firstly, they will provide examples and information to enrich the other work-packages. For example, the researchers will pay particular attention to interesting developments in the... read more  
The broadband gap in rural areas

The Centre for Rural Economy (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) has recently accomplished, as part of their contribution to the FARO-EU project, a literature review on Information and Communication Technologies in rural Europe. The review shows a clear evidence that at present the provision of broadband across Europe as being  less well-developed in rural areas than in urban areas (but also that broadband is much more advanced in some member states than others). This ‘gap’ in provision in rural areas may mean that there is no supply, or that what is supplied as ‘broadband’ is slow and/or very expensive.
The explanation for this is that areas with low population densities make them relatively unattractive investment

   opportunities to commercial telecommunications providers, especially those using delivery modes involving the physical installation of wires or cables.

The data also identifies a gap between the levels of broadband take up in rural areas when compared with urban areas. Some believes this indicates a disinclination to adopt on the part of rural residents and businesses, due to a long track record of slow take up of technologies, to the over-representation of social groups and economic sectors less likely to adopt, or to the lack of relevant applications. However others argue that it simply reflects the ... read more		    

 

Indicators meaningful for rural areas
The objective of the Work Package 2 in FARO-EU is ‘to identify recent trends and patterns in the evolution of rural areas in Europe from a territorial perspective’. This analysis of trends and patterns covers a wide range of fields, including socio-economic, environmental and land use issues.
A first step in WP2 was to compose a list of useful indicators identifying trends and patterns in the evolution of rural areas in the EU.
This list of indicators was structured according to five themes: demography,		  

economic structure and performance, quality of life and social well-being, environment, and land use. As territorial units we will use NUTS-3 regions and for Germany, planning regions which result from aggregation of NUTS-3.

We will use a number of socio-economic thematic typologies of EU regions based on population density, a typology of leading and lagging regions derived from employment growth and a typology based on the share of agriculture in total employment. In addition... read more

  
The role of FARO-EU scenarios for policy makers   
    An important element of Foresight Analysis is the development of scenarios exploring alternative future developments. These scenarios can be used to stimulate discussion about the future of rural areas in Europe and the required policy responses to probable future changes.

A first step in developing scenarios is determining the most important drivers of change in rural Europe. At a recent workshop, FARO scientists asked EU policymakers about the drivers of change they thought were most important for rural Europe.		   While they agreed with the FARO team that global economic development and demographic trends are very important, they also stressed the importance of rural – urban interactions (e.g. distance to and employment in urban centres).

A second question the FARO team asked the policy makers related to the types of scenarios that would be useful to them. Here the policymakers indicated that the FARO scenarios should link to... read more

FARO-EU Consortium
The FARO-EU project is supported by the European Commission 6th Framework Program. The project brings together different research institutions from the academic sector: 10 partners and 3 subcontractors from 6 EU countries, with a rich knowledge and experience. 

The partners:
  • Alterra, the Netherlands
  • Wageningen University, the Netherlands
  • LEI, the Netherlands
  • Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics, Poland
  • Systems Research Institute, Poland
  • University of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
  • University of Edinburgh, Scotland,
  • University of Bucharest, Romania
  • Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), JRC, Spain
  • Red Española de Desarollo Rural, Spain
  The subcontractors:
  • WING Consultancy, the Netherlands
  • the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP)
  • Institute of Geography and Spatial Organisation, Poland
  • Grupo Alba, Spain