ESIRA

Title and acronym

“Enhancing Social Innovation in Rural Areas” (ESIRA)

Programme and call

HORIZON-CL6-2023-COMMUNITIES-01-1

Reference

101136253

Principal investigator

 Luis Antonio Marcos Naveira

Project coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE BURGOS

Partners

• SOCIEDAD PARA EL DESARROLLO DE LA PROVINCIA DE BURGOS (Spain)
• FUNDACIÓN OXIGENO (Spain)
• HETFA KUTATOINTEZET KFT (Hungary)
• MAGYAR REFORMATUS SZERETETSZOLGALAT ALAPITVANY (Hungary)
• INSTITUT ZA RAZVOJ I INOVACIJE - IRI (Serbia)
• EUROPEAN RURAL DEVELOPMENT NETWORK (Poland)
• LIETUVOS SOCIALINIU MOKSLU CENTRAS (Lithuania)
• DRUSKININKU VIETOS VEIKLOS GRUPE (Lithuania)
• EURICSE (Italy)
• BORGHIIN RETE DI IMPRESE (Italy)
• FEDERAZIONE TRENTINA DELLA COOPERAZIONE SC (Italy)
• HOGSKOLEN I INNLANDET (Norway)
• INNLANDET FYLKESKOMMUNE (Norway)
• Euromontana (France)

Overall project budget

4.499.840,00€

Contribution of the Funding agency

4.499.840,00€

UBU´s budget

588.500,00€

EC contribution

588.500,00€

Project duration

48 months (01/01/2024– 31/12/2028)

Contact

qplamn@ubu.es

Project website

https://www.esira.eu/

Description

ESIRA acknowledges that innovative social economy initiatives, focusing on local networks, competences, and resources, are able to recognise the important role of citizen-led activities to fulfil the needs of rural areas, especially marginalised ones. Nevertheless, many policies and initiatives fail to effectively support them and/or engage the more vulnerable groups of population. The main objective of ESIRA is to contribute to the rollout of place-based innovative social economy initiatives for rural inclusion and development in (marginalised) rural areas by supporting enabling frameworks, well-interconnected policy architecture and directly piloting innovative

solutions which ultimately build more inclusive, resilient and prosperous rural areas. To achieve it, ESIRA will implement a work plan focused on (i) the research of community-led rural innovation spaces able to connect and empower actors, reinforce the social capital and sense of community, considering the great diversity of rural areas within Europe, and eventually (ii) nurturing and piloting social economy initiatives that strengthen the inclusiveness and living conditions of different groups of population in vulnerable situation, from the improvement in the provision of (social) services, economic diversification, and sustainable management of the natural capital. This will enable to (iii) stocktake and formulate recommendations for policymakers to better support the third sector and local communities, increasing the understanding of the needs and challenges of vulnerable groups of population and social economy, and (iv) boost the knowledge-exchange among local actors, building up their capacities and facilitating the scale up and replication of social economy initiatives across Rural Europe. 9 regions in 7 European countries will be involved in the project. The exploitation and dissemination activities will aim at expanding those regional spaces and replicating our concept in new regions.

Funded by the European Union under GA number 101136253.