New EU project set to harness technology for more resilient rural communites

TERRAE is a new European project exploring how technology can support the economic and social sustainability of rural communities. Coordinated by Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), the project involves 17 organisations across Europe working together to develop and test new digital tools in five rural regions.

Rural areas are particularly exposed to some of the major transformations of our time: population decline and ageing, gaps in infrastructure and services, and the effects of climate change and recent crises on activities that are fundamental to local economies, such as agriculture, forest management and workforce availability. TERRAE aims to use technology to help these communities better understand their local area, anticipate change, and assess the effects of different choices in advance.

A key innovation of the project is the TERRAE Rural Digital Twin (RDT): a digital representation of rural areas combining environmental and territorial information with data on people, the economy and society. Using artificial intelligence and 3D modelling, the RDT will help observe how different phenomena interact — from vegetation and water to workforce availability and economic activity — and picture future scenarios, so that administrators, operators and communities can assess the consequences of a choice before putting it into practice, through an intuitive, three-dimensional platform.

“I’m proud to coordinate a project that brings digital twin technology, usually confined to industry and urban settings, to remote and rural territories. Agriculture and forestry are the economic backbone of these areas, and using digital twins to provide them with planning and predictive capabilities can make a real difference to how these sectors adapt and grow, bringing benefits to the whole community”, said Matteo Gerosa (FBK), project coordinator.

The solutions will first be tested in five pilot regions in Spain, England, Italy, Slovenia and Greece, chosen for their very different environmental and social conditions. Each solution focuses on specific challenges in agriculture or forest management with local communities directly involved. Their replicability will then be tested in four “follower” areas, selected through an open call.

ICONS, the partner responsible for promoting the project, will work closely with the consortium to bring project results to policymakers, industry stakeholders, researchers and the wider public, helping to maximise its impact across Europe.
ICONS also contributes to the social innovation dimension of TERRAE: first by helping identify and engage the rural actors who are too often unheard, and then by working with them to define inclusive innovation principles for rural areas — so that these communities help shape the solutions and can take them forward, fostering their long-term uptake and sustainability.

“Our role at ICONS is to make sure the knowledge generated in the pilot regions reaches the people who can act on it — from local communities to policymakers across Europe. That means not only communicating results, but also working on inclusive innovation principles so that rural areas, and especially the voices that are usually left out, help shape the solutions and can take them forward”, said Jelena Lazic, Project Management Officer at ICONS.

Background

TERRAE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101295313. Beyond the five pilot areas, the project aims to develop tools that can be applied more widely across European rural areas, making them more liveable, sustainable and resilient, while strengthening the knowledge and participation of local communities.

The consortium comprises Fondazione Bruno Kessler as coordinator; the University of Deusto, the Institute for Rural Development Research (IfLS), the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), the University of Leicester, the Agricultural University of Athens and the University of Ljubljana; Q-PLAN International Advisors, Fondazione ICONS, FundingBox Accelerator and FundingBox Communities; NILEAS and Fenland Soil; the Autonomous Province of Trento, the municipality of Àger and the municipality of Črna na Koroškem; and the European Association for Innovation in Local Development (AEIDL).

Contacts:

Project coordinator:
Matteo Gerosa, Fondazione Bruno Kessler,
gerosa@fbk.eu

Communication Managers:
Jelena Lazic, Project Management Officer, ICONS Innovation Strategies,
jelena.lazic@icons.it
Anna Tamburrino, Communication Officer, ICONS Innovation Strategies
anna.tamburrino@icons.it