RurAllure

Short description of the project:

RurAllure (“Promotion of rural museums and heritage sites in the vicinity of European pilgrimage routes”) is a 36-month project, funded by the EU programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020, which started in January 2021.

The goals of rurAllure include the following:

· To establish a network of institutions to work on the promotion of cultural venues and heritage sites from the rural environments of Europe, in the vicinity of pilgrimage routes.

· To develop studies from historical, cultural, sociological and economic perspectives, to understand and exploit the opportunities linked to the promotion of rural heritage as an added value to enrich the pilgrimage experiences.

· To create a technological platform with specialised content management facilities, as well as web/mobile apps to help plan the trips and to cohesively present the heritage of the regions traversed over several days or weeks.

· To assess the strategies and recommendations derived from the aforementioned studies in four pilots, conducted in regions of Europe traversed by different transnational pilgrimage routes, and focusing on different facets of Cultural Heritage relevant to regional development.

· To exchange best practices and lessons learnt in the pilots all over Europe.

· To define an agenda with key research and innovation challenges for the decade.

Liaison with RURITAGE:

RurAllure is interested in the work conducted in RURITAGE since 2018 in the Systemic Innovation Area (SIA) of Pilgrimage. Collaboration is seen as a way to ensure the sustainability and transferability of the results, with RURITAGE informing the rurAllure pilots about the methodologies they have been developing since 2018, and gathering together contacts into the rurAllure network of institutions, which will foster synergies among organizations working on pilgrimage all over Europe. Joint networking events are planned for the last months of RURITAGE: April, May and June 2022.