The innovativeness of rural Europe: A contribution to the concept of innovation

Rural Europe faces new challenges in an increasingly globalized economy. There are problems of cost competition, outmigration, an ageing population, dispersed settlements, lack of proximity services and employment opportunities. On the other hand opportunities emerge from new demands of the information society, like a healthy environment and typical products of high quality, or space for creative leisure and learning activities, or like a new look to cultural traditions in agriculture and craftsmanship. At the same time the notion of distance has considerably changed due to new telecommunication technologies. The LEADER community initiative is supporting around 800 local action groups (LAG), especially in Objective 1 or 5b rural areas all around Europe; LAG are public-private, public or more rarely private partnerships carrying ou their specific development programme for a smaller region (between 5000 and 100000 inhabitants). The work group on innovation studied and analysed a large number of innovative actions within, but also outside these LEADER areas. The features of the processes revealed that innovation takes place to an astounding extent, and that their specific character even contributes to a better understanding and further development of the concept of innovation. It can be shown that ? Innovation is not a single action, but does have a global character. The whole cycle of action which it comprises over time, sometimes contain quite ?banal" things, carried out step by step, following the logic of trial and error. The innovation lies in the interlinkages and connections which are created between resources, actors, activities and between the local and the external world. ? A cycle of actions is innovative, if it emerges out of a given context and makes this context irreversibly more complex, more dynamic; it creates more alternatives of action and responses than had been disposable before. ? Innovation has a deeply social character. It is fuelled by ?energetic differentials", resulting from different ?speeds" of the local and the global (in terms of productivity, quality requirements, migration flows, nature degradation,...); it really starts, when local actors start to perceive this differential in a new way. During the process new ways of collective learning and of conflict negotiation arise. Finally new common references, values, visions, attitudes or forms of organisation take shape. ? According to the stage of the process, three types of innovation can be distinguished. The first type relates to the mobilisation of people?s energies in the place. It is not directly creating new jobs and wealth, but prepares the soil for their later emergence. They can be characterized as innovations in facilitation and animation. The second type of innovation channels the energies in order to prepare the field for new, coherent and value adding activities. They deal with village renewal, the establishment of quality charts and organisational restructuring of formerly individually squandering actors. The third type of innovation deals with the creation of filieres in the value adding chain of local resources, moreover with the diversifcaton of the local economy and with creating synergies between formerly separate strands of activities. These innovations consolidate new links to the global and consolidate a new position in the economic competition between regions. These and more facts will be delivered by representatives of the work group on the base of selected case studies. Contribution to Theme A: Regional Economics in Transition: Institutional Development and Socio-Economic Change

Approaches for assessing the impacts of the Rural Development Programmes in the context of multiple intervening factors

The Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) provides a single framework for monitoring and evaluation of all EU Rural Development Programmes (RDP) in the current programming period (2007-2013). It provides continuity from previous periods and constitutes a significant simplification as regards assessment of results and impacts, while at the same time offering greater flexibility to Member States. The European Evaluation Network for Rural Development has published a Working Paper on Approaches for assessing the impacts of the Rural Development Programmes in the context of multiple intervening factors. The aim of the Working Paper is to inspire and to encourage programme evaluators, not to restrict or constrain them. From a methodological perspective, the three common socio-economic impact indicators of the CMEF (economic growth, employment creation, labour productivity) are more closely related than the four common environmental impact indicators (reversing biodiversity decline, maintenance of High Nature Value faming and forestry, improvement in water quality, contribution to combating climate change).assessment of impacts, Rural Development Programmes, policy evaluation, EU policy, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Capturing impacts of Leader and of measures to improve Quality of Life in rural areas

The Helpdesk of European Evaluation Network for Rural Development supported by a group of external experts has prepared a Working Paper on ”Capturing the impacts of Leader and measures to improve the Quality of life (QoL) in rural areas”. The working paper provides methodological support for evaluators, managing authorities and other interested parties. The main evaluation challenges include: assessing the “double scope” of Leader (it is both a process and generates impacts); the need to adequately define what is QoL in the context of Rural Development Programmes (RDPs); tackling the qualitative nature of the effects; identifying contributions from small-scale interventions; and the fact that the EU’s Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) requires assessment of impacts ultimately at programme level. The working paper is targeted primarily at practitioners involved in the evaluation of the current RDPs (2007-2013). It proposes a framework of reference which provides a conceptual model in order to assess Quality of Life around four dimensions – environment, socio-culture, economy and governance.Rural development, impact evaluation, leader, quality of life, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q18,

Synthesebericht und Handlungsempfehlungen

Softcover, 124 S.: 21,00 €Softcover, 17x24Das Modell- und Demonstrationsvorhaben »Regionen Aktiv - Land gestaltet Zukunft« wurde im Jahr 2001 durch das Bundesministerium für Verbraucherschutz, Ernährung und Landwirtschaft als bundesweiter Wettbewerb initiiert. Gesucht wurden Regionen, die die Ziele »Verbraucherorientierung«, »natur- und umweltverträgliche Landbewirtschaftung«, »Stärkung ländlicher Räume und Schaffung zusätzlicher Einkommensquellen« sowie »Stärkung der Stadt-Land Beziehungen« modellhaft in ihrer Region umsetzen. Begleitet wurde das Modellvorhaben von einem interdisziplinären Forschungsteam. Aufgeteilt in mehreren Modulen wurde das Modellvorhaben aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln und mit unterschiedlichen Methoden analysiert und bewertet. Der vorliegende Synthesebericht fügt die Ergebnisse dieser einzelnen Module zusammen und präsentiert die zentralen Ergebnisse und Handlungsempfehlungen der Begleitforschung

Social innovation for sustainability transformation and its diverging development paths in marginalised rural areas

Abstract Social innovation is perceived as a collaborative response from civic society actors to societal challenges and as such is increasingly being recognised as a driver for sustainable development. Social innovation promotes civic values, particularly in marginalised rural areas that are often struggling with biophysical and market limits, as well as shortages of public funding. In order to identify diverging development paths (DDPs) for social innovation, in this article, we use two large sets of empirical material from the SIMRA research project. First, for meta-analyses of social innovation in diverse situations and contexts, we use 211 validated social innovation examples. Second, we rely on 11 in-depth cases to reflect on the contexts and dimensions of social innovation. The elaboration of conceptualisation and deductive analyses result in the creation of a typology of social innovation DDPs, with four DDPs identified and explained. The article provides an improved understanding of how social innovation emerges and develops and how to capture processes and resulting changes in marginalised rural areas in order to turn such areas’ diversity into strengths. An important conclusion is that social innovation involves both local and external actors, yet cannot develop without specific internal local activity and local knowledge

Approaches for assessing the impacts of the Rural Development Programmes in the context of multiple intervening factors

The Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) provides a single framework for monitoring and evaluation of all EU Rural Development Programmes (RDP) in the current programming period (2007-2013). It provides continuity from previous periods and constitutes a significant simplification as regards assessment of results and impacts, while at the same time offering greater flexibility to Member States. The European Evaluation Network for Rural Development has published a Working Paper on Approaches for assessing the impacts of the Rural Development Programmes in the context of multiple intervening factors. The aim of the Working Paper is to inspire and to encourage programme evaluators, not to restrict or constrain them. From a methodological perspective, the three common socio-economic impact indicators of the CMEF (economic growth, employment creation, labour productivity) are more closely related than the four common environmental impact indicators (reversing biodiversity decline, maintenance of High Nature Value faming and forestry, improvement in water quality, contribution to combating climate change)

Capturing impacts of Leader and of measures to improve Quality of Life in rural areas

The Helpdesk of European Evaluation Network for Rural Development supported by a group of external experts has prepared a Working Paper on ”Capturing the impacts of Leader and measures to improve the Quality of life (QoL) in rural areas”. The working paper provides methodological support for evaluators, managing authorities and other interested parties. The main evaluation challenges include: assessing the “double scope” of Leader (it is both a process and generates impacts); the need to adequately define what is QoL in the context of Rural Development Programmes (RDPs); tackling the qualitative nature of the effects; identifying contributions from small-scale interventions; and the fact that the EU’s Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) requires assessment of impacts ultimately at programme level. The working paper is targeted primarily at practitioners involved in the evaluation of the current RDPs (2007-2013). It proposes a framework of reference which provides a conceptual model in order to assess Quality of Life around four dimensions – environment, socio-culture, economy and governance

Investigation of IL-23 (p19, p40) and IL-23R identifies nuclear expression of IL-23 p19 as a favorable prognostic factor in colorectal cancer: a retrospective multicenter study of 675 patients.

IL-23 is a heterodimeric cytokine involved in inflammatory diseases; its role in cancer progression is controversial. Here we analyse the expression of IL-23 subunits (p40 and p19) and IL-23R in colorectal cancer with regard to disease progression, clinical-pathological and molecular aspects. Immunohistochemistry for IL-23p19, IL-23p40, IL-23R and CD8 was performed on a multi-punch tissue microarray of 195 colorectal cancers (cohort 1), matched normal tissue, adenoma and lymph node metastases. Results were compared with clinical-pathological features and CD8+ T-cell counts, then validated on two patient cohorts (cohort 2: n=341, cohort 3: n=139). Cytoplasmic/membranous expression of IL-23 (p19 and p40 subunits) and IL-23R, respectively were over-expressed in carcinomas versus adenomas and normal tissues (p<0.0001) but were reduced in lymph node metastases (p<0.0001). Nuclear IL-23p19 expression was observed in 23.1% and was associated with early TNM stage (p=0.0186), absence of venous (p=0.0124) and lymphatic invasion (p=0.01493), favorable survival (p=0.014) and absence of distant metastasis (p=0.0146; specificity: 100%). This unexpected cellular localization was confirmed by cell fractionation. The beneficial effect of nuclear IL-23p19 was restricted to tumours with CD8+ high counts. Results were validated on Cohorts 2/3. This multicenter study underlines the possible CD8(+)--dependency and beneficial effect of nuclear IL-23p19 on overall patient survival