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practice RURAL INCLUSION

RURAL INCLUSION

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Acronym of the case:

RURAL INCLUSION

Web address of the case:

http://www.rural-inclusion.eu/

Country of the case:

Pan european

Posting Date:

23 June 2010

Last Edited Date:

05 July 2010

Author:

Belen Gallego (ATOS ORIGIN)
tags

Rural inclusion | egovernment | living labs

RURAL INCLUSION Logobgallego's picture
Editor's Choice 2010

Type of initiative

  • Project or service-imgProject or service

Case Abstract

The Rural Inclusion project focuses on the offer of e-government services to regional enterprises in the scope of reducing/simplifying interaction with public organizations. It is financed by the European Commission Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP).

Description of the case

Domain
eGovernment
Topic
Inclusive eGovernment | Services for Citizens | Regional and Local | User-centric Services
Sector
Education, Science and Research | Employment | Local/Regional Community Development | Social Services
Date
June 2009 to May 2012
Target Users
Administrative | Business (self-employed) | Business (SME) | Citizen | Civil society | Intermediaries
Target Users Description

On a regional/national level, apart from the directly involved user groups, project results are expected to reach and involve other beneficiaries, such as:

  • Rural communities/citizens: other professionals and/or citizens of the rural areas that will be involved in the project, which will be able to take advantage of the e-Government services that the regional portals will include.
  • ICT suppliers in rural areas: companies or individuals that can provide technical solutions and support for the SMEs that decide to electronically communicate/interact with the semantic e-Government services of the regional portals, in order to automate part or all of the targeted processes.
  • Training providers/institutes: vocational training centres, lifelong learning institutions, or business consultancy centres that are involved in supporting and/or training rural SMEs, which will be able to provide specialized support and training programs in order to complement the knowledge and capacities of both the personnel of rural public administration and of rural SME personnel.
  • National and international businesses and organisations who will be attracted in those regions.
Scope
Local (city or municipality) | Pan-European
Status
Pilot
Language(s)
English | French | Greek | Latvian | Spanish

Policy Context and Legal Framework

Rural Inclusion fully supports all the main objectives of i2010. Semantic technologies are key technologies for creating Single Information Space, as they can address semantic differences between isolated information spaces and consequently enable the transparent flow and exchange of information among them.

Rural inclusion is also fully in line with Riga declaration, which was published in Riga on the occasion of the Ministerial Conference "ICT for an inclusive society" in July 2006. The conference participants agreed to focus on the following priorities and commit to the indicated policy goals:

  • Address the needs of older workers and elderly people,
  • Reduce geographical digital divides,
  • Enhance eAccessibility and usability,
  • Improve digital literacy and competences,
  • Promote inclusive eGovernment,
  • Mobilise appropriate instruments

The strong focus on SME sector of Rural Inclusion open possibilities for better implementation of goals was expressed in the Helsinki Manifest, published on the Conference "Networked Business and Government: Something Real for the Lisbon Strategy", held in Helsinki, on 23-24 October 2006. The manifest declared that new, concrete measures are needed for turning the Lisbon Strategy into a living reality and making Europe more competitive and innovative in a human-centric way. The goals of Helsinki Manifest are:

  • Opening EU-wide procurement of R&D for innovation within public services,
  • Creating an EU-wide standardized and harmonized banking and financial eServices
  • Creating a European Network of Living Labs as a way to enhance European innovativeness,
  • Increasing interoperability and creating EU-wide standards and eServices,
  • Setting up a Strategic Task Force over the Presidencies in 2007-2008,
  • Collaborating with the horizontal programme within the 7th framework programme for EU wide knowledge-intensive service society development,
  • Enabling working environment.

So, the Rural Living labs are critical for the implementation of Lisbon agenda and of i2010 in rural regions.

Regarding rural development, and in line with the Lisbon Strategy, on 20 February 2006 the Agriculture Council adopted the EU Strategic Guidelines for Rural Development 2007-2013.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative
Inclusive services of general interest
Overall Implementation approach
Partnerships between administration and/or private sector and/or non-profit sector
Technology choice
Standards-based technology
Funding source
Public funding EU
Project size
Implementation: Not applicable/not available

Implementation and Management Approach

It focuses on selected case studies of e-Government services that regional public authorities already offer, supports them by a rigorous and reusable service process analysis and modeling, and then deploys a semantic service that facilitates the disambiguation of the small businesses needs and requirements when trying to use the particular services. At the same time, the semantic service is complemented by a number of other Web-based services that support the creation of communities of learning and practice in rural settings, thus facilitating the communication between the rural businesses and the regional public authorities.

The adopted technical infrastructure has been developed and initially deployed in the context of previous initiatives in which the project partners have been involved. In Rural Inclusion, this infrastructure will be used as the basis to set up or (enhance) e-Government portals of regional public agencies.

Technology solution

Rural Inclusion adopts, adapts, and deploys a Web infrastructure combining semantic services with a collaborative training and networking approach.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

  • Encouraging the take-up and diffusion of ICT in the fields of e-business (particularly in relation to SMEs), e-skills and e-learning;
  • Encouraging the take-up and diffusion of ICT. Take up and diffusion of ICT is essential in rural areas for diversification, as well as for local development, the provision of local services and the promotion of e-government.
  • Encouraging the development of Tourism. Tourism is a major growth sector in many rural areas. Increased use of ITC in tourism for bookings, promotion, marketing, service design and recreational activities can help improve visitor number and length of stays, particularly where this provides links to smaller facilities and encourages agro-tourism;
  • Building local partnership capacity, animation and promoting skills acquisition can help mobilise local potential;
  • Promoting private-public partnership in encouraging innovative approaches to rural development and bringing the private and public sectors together;
  • Promoting cooperation and innovation can play an essential role in connecting people to new ideas and approaches, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship and promote inclusiveness and the provision of local services. On-line communities can help in the dissemination of knowledge, the exchange of good practices and innovation in rural products and services;
  • Improving local governance. To foster innovative approaches to linking agriculture, forestry and the local economy thereby helping to diversify the economic base and strengthen the socio-economic tissue of rural areas.

Lessons learnt

To reach a significant reduction in administrative burdens, the project proposes the deployment of an innovative information-elicitation e-Government service that will greatly facilitate rural SMEs. This is expected to happen by helping SMEs to avoid the time-consuming and sometimes even impossible (e.g. in the case of small islands that have almost none public service infrastructure) phase of making an informational visit to a public authority, only to find out if they are eligible for some public service, which service instance is appropriate for them, and what are the relevant documents needed. The improvements that will be introduced by the proposed service will be measured in terms of efficiency and effectiveness for citizens, as well as, for the rural SMEs and the public administrations themselves.

 To facilitate transfer of experience, a series of national and EU-level workshops will be organized, so as to exchange experiences and methodologies from already deployed solutions

in Member States at national, regional or local level. These workshops will result in a set of generic recommendations about further reducing administrative burdens for rural SMEs, based on the e-Government service to be deployed by Rural Inclusion.

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    Showing 4 comments

    Rural Inclusion

    05 July 2010 | 2805 Visits | Rating: 5 (maximum:5)

    Population in rural areas suffer digital gap much more then people live in urban. So, it is harder to apply e-government  projects in rural areas. I hope this pilot project will be successful  and will be an example for other projects.

    Idea

    04 August 2010 | 0 Visit | Rating: 5 (maximum:5)

    A good idea. I agree and support.

    facts

    19 July 2010 | 0 Visit | Rating: 5 (maximum:5)

    I agree, when you alienate others it damages the community culturally. I hope this goes through because those in the rural areas need equally as far a chance.

    HOPEFULLY

    19 July 2010 | 0 Visit | Rating: 5 (maximum:5)

    I have to agree, it feels like there is a status class sometimes. When you exclude members outside of a community but they live so close, it creates an alienation that mirrors the images of classation.

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