PRESS RELEASE

2 November 2022 | Bratislava, Slovakia: Pedal Consulting s. r. o. in cooperation with 28 pan-European and 19 African organisations launched a new project “RURALITIES – Expertise and training centre on rural innovation’. The European Commission allocated the budget of 4.334.00,00 million Euros under its programme Horizon2020 (HORIZON-CL6-2021-COMMUNITIES-01-02).[1]

RURALITIES aspires to support the rural development. Mainly by delivering expertise as well as creating a learning framework of living labs by September 2027. This will be done via real-scale practicing (demonstrators) in six simplified rural socio-ecological systems (SIMSES), located in Italy, the United- Kingdom, Slovenia, Spain and Romania.

The project aims to recruit, train and coach 1.000+ facilitators (e.g., trainers, role models, hub coordinators, etc.) distributed in all participating countries. They will be responsible for creating the matrix and the platform upon which the learning framework will be built and developed.

Moreover, RURALITIES will coordinate actions of local and regional authorities in support of rural innovation in regions and economic sectors, where rural innovators are not yet engaged. Such as food, logistics, tourism, health, energy and digital technologies. They are primarily initiatives rooted in the EU-Africa Research and Innovation Partnership.

RURALITIES plans to achieve the following milestones:

a)   create an action plan, a road map and a dissemination/communication plan in the initial phase (by March 2023);

b)   launch the RURALITIES website on rural innovation from different initiatives and countries (by March 2023);

c)   establish specialised training centres for facilitators (by December 2026);

d)   open RURALITIES expertise centres – information and contact points (by December 2026);

e)   set up RURALITIES Hubs innovation accelerators providing tools and methodology to implement the project results (by December 2026).

About PEDAL Consulting
PEDAL Consulting is a management consulting firm.  It has got a long-time experience in the design and implementation of partnerships and cooperation models while addressing societal challenges.  The multinational team of accomplished professionals strives to deliver outstanding results to clients – from both the public and private sectors across multiple industries, geographies, and policy domains. Pedal Consulting has got extended networks in all EU member states, but also in wider Europe, Eurasia, Africa, MENA, South America, and the United States.

Contact – Project Coordinator:                                              
Mr Gabor MESTER, Pedal Consulting s.r.o. (Slovakia)
e-mail: g.mester@pedal-consulting.eu, ph.: +36304306457

Project Media officer:
Mr Ioanna Thomatou, CETRI (Cyprus), e-mail: i.thomatou@cetri.net