The Project has six main objectives:
to identify the key causes and effects of economic restructuring currently at work in Europe’s rural areas. More specifically we aim to identify the specificities of rural structural transformation and explore the causes of contemporary employment considerations and social marginalisation.
to explore the consequences that the 'Globalisation' processes had and will have upon the development trajectories of rural areas.
to identify sources of entrepreneurship and examine their distribution between different gender, as well as age and other social groupings.
to evaluate the extend to which the existing institutional, social and technological environment encourages and facilitates entrepreneurship.
to analyse the nature and type of work created through entrepreneurial activity and explore how these new employment opportunities are distributed between gender as well as age and other social groups.
to assess the appropriateness of existing policy approaches and instruments to identify initiatives which could have wider application in Europe’s rural areas.