landscape with fields and hills
Empowering rural communities to act for change

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

Submit your abstract until 14th of February 2025!

The RURACTIVE partners University of Pisa, 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, will host a working group 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 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.

We are calling academics to submit their abstracts on the working group's topic. The deadline for the submission is 14th of February 2025.

The context of the event

Rural areas are facing systemic challenges that threaten the existence of the rural communities that 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 do 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 working group no.39 here.
  • You can find all working group descriptions and formats here.
  • Our working group format encourages poster/PPT presentations that are mainly visual (so, please, take this into account when applying)—be bold and experiment!
  • Each working group 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 two abstracts.
  • You can also apply to the poster session.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to Riga!