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The
diversity of problems and the great regional variation in European
rural development requires a project organization, which will give
special emphasis to collaboration with researchers in the various
countries. The ERD project will therefore consist
of three parts: |
| 1. |
A
IIASA Core Group, which will focus its research on
Europe-wide comparative analyses. The main tasks of the core group
will be ...
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GIS-based
comparative analyses of basic trends and underlying driving
forces of rural change in Europe; |
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a
series of case studies; |
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Development
of a Rural Development Model
(RDM), which will be a decision
support software for regional planning and political decision
making. |
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| 2. |
Several
collaborating Focus Groups located in IIASA member countries.
So far we have been discussing the following Focus Groups
(see diagram 2): |
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EU-Expansion (with participants from
Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary); |
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Scandinavia, remote areas in
Northern Europe, (with participants from Norway, Sweden, Finland,
and possibly Scotland); |
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Organic farming (Germany, Austria); |
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New technologies (Sweden, Finland); |
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Alpine regions (Germany, Austria); |
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In
addition we plan collaboration with interested researchers and
institutions independently of focus groups. So far colleagues in the
Netherlands, Denmark, and the UK have expressed interest.
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| 3. |
A
process of network activities, such as regular workshops or
conferences, where all participants of the project, but also
external researchers, would come together, exchange results and
coordinate joint publications. |
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A
core element of the networking activity will be the development and maintenance
of an ERD Network Web site, which will serve as a platform
for information exchange and collaboration.
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We
will also organize regular ERD workshops
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Diagram 2:
Proposed organization of the ERD collaboration
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The
Focus Groups could be organized on a geographical or a thematic
basis. For instance, one Focus Group could deal with rural
development in the EU accession countries (particularly Poland,
Czech Republic, Hungary); another with the impact of new information
technology (Internet) on rural development (see diagram above).
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