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ESRS Congress: Call for academic abstracts on rural innovation ecosystems and social innovation in rural areas

Submit your abstract until 14/02/2025

The Pisa Agricultural Economics group (PAGE) from the University of Pisa, the Department of Architecture of the University of Bologna, and the James Hutton Institute of the two Horizon Europe sister projects, FUTURAL and RURACTIVE, in collaboration with the Thünen-Institute for Regional Development and the Technical University of Lubeck, will host a Working Group (WG) at the 30th European Society of Rural Sociology Congress (ESRS) entitled: Rural Areas as Innovation Ecosystems: Transformative Strategies and Social Innovations. The two projects are calling academics with expertise in the field of social and transformative innovation to submit their abstracts and contribute to our Working Group. The event will take place in Riga, Latvia, from 7-11 of July, 2025.

The hosts of the WG are calling academics to submit their abstracts on the group’s topic. The deadline for the submission is February 14, 2025.

The context of the event

Rural areas are facing systemic challenges that threaten the existence of the rural communities who populate these places and take care of the rich natural ecosystems that often surround them. Innovation is generally thought to be one solution that might support ruralities in navigating their transitions.
This Working Group aims to investigate:
• What type of innovations rural areas need and why (social, transformative).
• How these innovations might emerge, with specific reference to innovation ecosystem thinking.
• To what extent rural innovations might drive transformative change.

Details on the submissions

•Interested applicants are encouraged to look at the description of WG n. 39 here.
•You can find the information for abstracts’ submission here.
•Our WG format encourages poster/PPT presentations that are particularly visual (so, please, take it into account when applying)—be bold and experiment!
•Each WG description contains information on the topics, epistemic and methodological approaches, and format. The names of the convenors are also listed.
•Each participant can submit a maximum number of 2 abstracts.
•You can also apply to the poster session.

We’re looking forward to welcome you in Riga!

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