Heritage for Rural Regeneration

All over the world, rural areas tell us the story of a thousand of years long collaboration between nature and human society. These places embody unique examples of cultural and natural heritage, which not only needs to be safeguarded but also recognized as communities of sustainable development. The RURITAGE project has turned rural areas into laboratories to demonstrate natural and cultural heritage as an engine for regeneration.

RURITAGE VISION

Rural areas all over the world are facing chronic economic, social and environmental problems. This is resulting in unemployment, disengagement, depopulation, marginalisation or loss of cultural, biological and landscape diversity. There are numerous examples of good practices showing how Cultural and Natural Heritage can function as an engine for development. The RURITAGE project suggests that the challenges of rural areas can be overturned by utilizing heritage potential.

RURITAGE has been a four-year-long EU-funded research project, initiated in June 2018, which strived to enable rural regeneration through heritage. The aim of the project was to sustainably enhance local heritage for regional and community development. The intention was to regenerate rural areas with the help of the Systemic Innovation Areas (SIA) framework: a tool used to identify unique heritage potential within rural communities. The recognised SIAs are Pilgrimage, Resilience, Sustainable Local Food Production, Integrated Landscape Management, Migration and Art and Festivals.

RURITAGE AMBITION

Throughout the RURITAGE project, thirteen rural areas have been selected as Role Models since they were recognised as prosperous cases that have regenerated with the help of cultural and natural heritage. The Role Models have been selected in reference to the six different Systemic Innovation Areas. Prosperous practices of the Role Models were analysed and furthermore transferred to six selected Replicators (one per SIA). These Replicators represented local communities within rural territories in the process of building their own heritage-led regeneration strategies, although in need of support to improve their skills, knowledge and capacity building.

Each Role Model and Replicator has established a so-called Rural Heritage Hub. The hub was constituted by a community of local stakeholders as well as a physical meeting place where co-creation activities took place. The knowledge and skills coming from Role Models’ experience were transferred to Replicators through a participatory planning process that allows to tailor and adapt the Role Models’ strategies to specific needs and challenges faced by Replicators. Still active, Rural Heritage Hubs are thereby living labs where local stakeholders and inhabitants cooperate for developing new heritage-led regeneration strategies for their territory.

 

Read about RURITAGE in different languages

Here you can download a brochure to read more about RURITAGE in some of our many project partners languages.

●   English
●    French
●    Gaelic
●    German
●    Greek

●    Italian
●    Norweigan
●    Hungarian
●    Icelandic

●    Romanian
●    Slovenian
●    Spanish
●    Turkish