1. Vital Rural Area:
Best practices and tools in
sustainable rural development
Napoli, 11 July 2013
Summer School Sustainable Tourism Management
Wietse W. Hermanns, project manager

2. Project characteristics
Project organisation
13 partner regions from 6 North Sea countries
(N, NL, B, DK, D, UK)
Lead partner: Northeast Fryslan (NL)
Scientific team and scientific group
University of South Denmark (DK)
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (NL)
University of East Anglia, Norwich (UK)
Project management: Wietse Hermanns / Peter Laan

4. Key element :
The co-operative agreement approach
“As a common standard for public private partnership, Vital
Rural
Area develops, implements and tests the co-operative
agreement approach CAA (involving all stakeholders,
cross-sectoral, top-down and bottom-up)
In this approach the stakeholders (e.g. municipalities, knowledge
institutes and private companies) draw up agreements with
targets/conditions how to work together to reach the joint
formulated goals within an agreed-upon period of time, using
the knowledge, experience and expertise of the inhabitants”

5. What functions may a CAA fulfill?
a) To reach sustainable implementation.
By involving all stakeholders and by a bottom-up way of
developing and implementing project results, sustainability can be
assured.
b) Opening chances for new rural alliances.
When cross-sectoral working is properly organized chances are
created for an integrative approach and building new alliances

6. To find strategies to fortify rural areas by:
1) Enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs
2) Improving the overall perception of the region
3) Delivering more and better services
Scope of the project and content basis

7. Made operational by the execution of pilot
projects in one out of three Work Packages:
1) Empowerment of small and medium-sized enterprises
towards new economical prospects and innovations
2) Branding of the region, towards a professional exposure of
regions
3) Optimizing services, towards more and better accessible
services and amenities
Scope of the project and content basis

8. Outcome of the project
The interactive Rural Power Pack
- a general working method/standard for developing
projects on sustainable regional development
- based on “best practices” pilots/project results and
scientific knowledge
- tested transnationally on its transferability to other
regions
- offering tools to be used in other regions

9. Rationale of a Rural Power Pack
Case studies executed in one of the VRA regions (partners) +
literature review of best practices (Scientific Team)
A methodology for tackling rural problems based on
one of three workpackage themes (Empowerment of
SME’s, Branding or Services)
Applying the methodology in other regions
throughout Europe
Experiences lead to an approved methodology to be
used in different situations throughout the EU 27

10. RPP: Linking pilot projects to scientific
modelling via key questions
Project
cases
Key questions: Applicability,transferability, integration /synthesis
Scientific modelling (3 corner approach -> tools derived)
Literature review (best practices added)
Policy frameworks
General perspectives
Basis
format

11. Basis model Rural Power Pack

12. From abstract modelling to
practical elaboration: questions
1) How to integrate project/pilot results from 3
different work packages ?
2) How to ensure the maximum outcome of
project results for the region as a whole?
3) How to test the applicability of project results
elsewhere?
4) How to reach a general method or standard to
be used in other regions?

13. 43 Project cases
Themes
1) Innovative approaches to education
2) Broadband and digital services
3) SME empowerment and
entrepreneurship
4) Good governance
5) Community building
6) Welfare and lifestyle
7) Profiling and branding
3 Work Packages

14. How to reach a general method
or standard to be used in other
regions?
1. By comparing and abstracting the project
results, we found lots of common grounds
2. Work packages could be transformed into
themes that may apply more specifically to
problems
3. and offer more integral solutions for several
problems encountered

15. How to reach a general method or
standard to be used in other regions?
4 By deriving and describing tools from project
results (“lessons learnt”, specific tools on the
local level that are highly context-bound)
5 Combined with scientific input more general
tools were developed on the theme-level

16. How to reach a general method
or standard to be used in other
regions?
6 By comparing project results with related
projects from elsewhere and with scientific
knowledge from literature
7 By adding key words to the projects, VRA-
projects can be connected to other databases
and networks

17. The Rural Power Pack: an integral
approach to solve rural problems
Problems and challenges
Tools
Proven solutions
Barriers
Lack of ambition Lack of power
Innovative approaches
to education
Broadband and digital services
SME empowerment
and enterpreneurship
Good governance
Community building
Welfare and lifestyle
Profiling and branding
Lack of young talent Lack of infrastructure
Lack of education
Lack of servicesLack of jobs
Demography
Politics
Regulations
History, culture and habits
Time and timing
OwnershipMoney
Landscape
Related Networks

18. Rural Power Pack overview
Rural problems or challenges
Local/regional approach
Problem analysis
Proposed solutions
Execution of project
Experiences / results
Lessons learnt / experiences
Applicability check (testing in other Vital
areas)
Sustainability check (Triple-P check)
Extension of knowledge by exchange
(key words, related projects)
Methodology
- Problem definition
(7 lacks of ..)
- Solution (7 themes)
- Barriers
(8 main fields described)
- TOOLS (derived from
projects or general)
An integral and interactive set of best practice project cases, containing experiences and
tools, to be applied for problems commonly encountered in contemporary rural areas
Themes and contents
Work packages
1 Empowerment of SMEs towards
new economical prospects and
innovations
2 Branding of the region, towards a
professional exposure of regions
3 Optimizing services, towards more
and better accessible services and
amenities
Themes
1 Innovative approaches to education
2 Broadband and digital services
3 SME empowerment
4 Good governance
5 Community building
6 Welfare and lifestyle
7 Profiling and branding
Bestpracticecases
4-layerapproach
43 Project formats
Presentation:
webbased with
uniform project
formats and “story-
telling” key projects
15 Key project formats
Cooperative
Agreement Approach

19. Translation of best practices to the RPP
structure of Vital Rural Area
Bundling power, resources and investments on the regional level
Embedding working structure in a regional setting, i.e. connection to
a regional knowledge institute plus to other, already existing
structures (like LEADER) and new ones
Spreading successes within the region and extending (new) local
stakeholders and partnerships
Building networks within and outside the country to enable best
practices transfer on main topics

20. Next steps Vital Rural Area
Finalising and testing Rural Power Pack (toolbox) among partners
Cooperation with other projects (clusters NSR, Rural Alliances
NWE, similar projects IVB, IVC elsewhere)
Dissemination Rural Power Pack to other regions in NSR and EU27
Sustaining project results in observatories, EU and national policy
documents, and follow-up projects (INTERREG, LEADER, other)

21. Further information
www.vitalruralarea.eu
Project management :
Wietse Hermanns, project manager – hermanns@vitalruralarea.eu
Peter Laan, coordinator Rural Power Pack – laan@vitalruralarea.eu