- IDARI is a pan-European and multidisciplinary research
and development project, funded by the European Commission
Quality of Life Programme (5th Framework).
- IDARI will implement a three year Ph.D. Programme,
in which students from the Central and Eastern European
subcontracting countries will participate. The start date
for the Doctoral Proramme was July 14th 2003.
- The IDARI Consortium consists of four Partners and
eleven Subcontractors. The co-ordinating partner is the
Department of Economics, National University of Ireland,
Galway.
The development of rural areas in Central and Eastern European
(CEE) countries is the focus of the project Integrated Development
of Agriculture and Rural Institutions in Central and Eastern
Europe (IDARI). Within the context of transition, rural
areas in CEE countries must cope with the dynamics and tensions
of radical change, destruction and restructuring of old
enterprises and reform of institutional structures and processes.
Entrepreneurship, innovation, learning, adoption and evolving
institutional frameworks are integral to this process. At
the same time CEE countries, upon their recent EU membership,
are vigorously implementing the acquis communautaire. CAP,
in particular, is directly pertinent to rural development.
The continuing reform of CAP, the concern with rural value
added, employment and environmental degradation, has generated
a two-strand approach, one primarily sectoral in nature
and the other spatial. Implementing these policies in an
effective and efficient way is vital to the overall development
of accession countries but in particular to their rural
areas.
IDARI research focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation in the different facets of rural development and value added creation. In particular, it will seek to identify the obstacles and bottlenecks to such development. It will also focus on the role institutions play in this process. The project activity is structured according to three distinct, but related thematic work packages
A. Rural and Environmental Sustainability (Biological Diversity and Environmental Sustainability; Social Capital; Migration; Rural Entrepreneurship);
B. Learning for Social-Ecological Resilience and Diffusion of Innovations;
C. Social Capital, Governance and Rural Institutional Innovation.
IDARI research will inform the various rural development actors and its research outputs will strengthen their decision-making, and policy formulation and implementation.
(i) Support policy-making for sustainable rural development in CEEC through the development of alternative frameworks of analysis appropriate to the transitional context, embracing institutional change, learning, innovation and competitiveness.
(ii) To strengthen the research capacity among CEEC personnel in the investigation of rural development.
(iii) To build a collaborative research capacity between EU and CEE partners in the investigation of sustainable rural development and institutional change (collecting primary data in selected CEECs).
Key Words: Sustainable rural development, innovation,
competitiveness, institutional change
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