Innovative
Smart Solutions
for rural areas
FUTURAL will prototype, test, and demonstrate community-led, social, technological and business innovations in different geographical and socio-cultural rural contexts. It will deliver a set of digital Smart Solutions to address key societal, environmental and financial challenges and empower rural communities to engage in change.
Smart solutions tailored to rural communities’ needs
Our news
Successful applicants of the FUTURAL Open Call
Meet the 10 inspiring sub-projects that have been selected through the FUTURAL Open Call! Each of these innovative sub-projects will develop a digital smart solution to address pressing real-life challenges faced
A win-win approach: Community-led innovation in rural areas can unlock the Right to Stay and EU Competitiveness in thepost-2027 EU policies
The FUTURAL Policy Webinar “Smarter, Stronger and More Competitive Rural Areas: The Way Forward for EU policies” presented the findings of the project’s policy analysis on existing support for community-led innovation
EU-RIF: How the FUTURAL Ecosystem is Expanding
From an idea into collective action Just one year ago, the EU Rural Innovation Forum (EU-RIF) existed mainly as an idea in the Grant Agreement of the FUTURAL project. Last
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FUTURALOur Vision
Community-led innovations
Co-design, implement, monitor, and evaluate community-led social and business innovations based on digital smart solutions.
Smart Solutions
Test, pilot, and demonstrate the digital smart solutions for the 5 FUTURAL domains to address social and environmental challenges faced by rural communities.
Capacity Building
Strengthen the capacity of rural communities to realise the potential of community- led innovations based on the proposed SS.
Networking and synergies
Establish synergies with rural innovator and CAP networks, smart villages, organisations, and other projects to enhance relations and knowledge exchange.
Scale-up
Propose policies and governance frameworks to maximise the project’s contribution in achieving future CAP objectives related to smart villages and develop business models to mainstream solutions.
FUTURAL's Results
For more resilient and sustainable rural areas, better connected and capable of improving their citizens’ well-being
OC smart solutions
Metasearch Platform
Inclusive business models
Policy guidelines and Governance Frameworks
Ecosystem and capacity building
FUTURAL Multi-Actor Pilots (MAPs)
Open Call
To fuel the growth trajectory of digital solutions for rural area empowerment and boost the overall project impact, FUTURAL will launch a single Open Call providing Financial Support to Third Parties as a mechanism to increase the number of Smart Solutions available to rural communities and accelerate network expansion.
The Open Call will encourage SMEs and other interested parties (startups and research organisations) to develop and apply their own smart solutions within the 5 FUTURAL domains, increasing the number of SS available to rural communities.
The Open Call will accept proposals from consortia of 2-4 parties (≥1 technical party and ≥1 rural community) and will result in at least 10 projects (max 120k euro per project – up to 60k Euro for each third party.
Our Partners
The FUTURAL collaboration brings together 21 partners from ten (10) EU countries to reinforce a multi-actor approach by bringing together academic and research institutes, industrial companies, service providers and non-profit organisations from across the IT, Social Science and Humanities, Business, Rural research, policy and public administration sectors.
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