The Leader programme 2007-2013: Enabling or disabling social innovation and neo-endogenous development? Insights from Austria and Ireland

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the Leader programme has been hailed as the instrument of rural policy that most explicitly takes account of the territorial dimension. This culminated in the mainstreaming of its underlying concept into the Rural Development Programmes of the current period (2007–2013), with the aim of having more effective policy implementation that considers the diversified needs of rural regions. Starting from analysis of the application and delivery of Leader under the present Rural Development Programme in two EU countries, Austria and Ireland, this paper presents an assessment of the effects of this programme change. In addition, it includes the EU-wide discussion on the (limited) effectiveness of the current implementation of Leader and the search for a reorientation towards local development activities in the EU’s reform proposals. The paper frames the analysis around the notion of social innovation, a concept of central importance to the aims of Leader. It is argued that the implementation of Leader in this period falls far behind its potential to beneficially impact rural regions; hence it should be an object of critical debate in the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and rural development measures, as well as coherence analyses with other policies, beyond 2013

Exploiting acid phosphatases in the synthesis of phosphorylated monoalcohols and diols

A set of phosphatases was evaluated for their potential to catalyze the regio- and stereoselective phosphorylation of alcs. using a high-​energy inorg. phosphate donor, such as di-​, tri- and polyphosphate. Parameters such as type and amt. of phosphate donor and pH of the reaction were investigated in order to minimize the thermodynamically favored hydrolysis of the phosphate donor and the formed phosphate ester. Diols were monophosphorylated with high selectivities. This biocatalytic phosphorylation method provides selectively activated and​/or protected synthetic intermediates for further chem. and​/or enzymic transformations and is applicable to a large scale (6.86 g) in a flow setup with immobilized phosphatase