1. +
New openings for rural
growth: a research agenda
Richard Wakeford
June 2015

2. +
Richard Wakeford

3. +
Structural typology

4. +
Urban and rural dynamics

5. +
Three types of rural regions (OECD)
 Rural territories within Functional Urban Areas
 …part of the catchment area of the urban core; development intimately linked to
the city
 Main challenges: service delivery in the face of consolidation; skills development to meet
urban labour market demands; managing land use policy brought by increasing pressures
from the core
 Rural outside but close to a Functional Urban Area
 …generally resilient local economies with good industrial mix, attracting new
residents
 Main challenges: competition for land and landscape driven by urban style growth; old and
new residents differ over needs and visions
 Rural areas remote from the Functional Urban Area
 …dominated by primary industrial sectors
 Main challenges: build on areas of absolute and comparative advantage; improve
connectivity to export markets; ensure appropriate skills development, and provision
of essential services

6. +
Rural growth – scale of investment?
Poultry production units near Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatarstan
Biorefining in Indiana, USA

7. +
Regional development Freeport in
Tatarstan – rural?
 new openings for rural growth?
 development of human and social capital in rural areas?

8. +
OECD view of rural development
 “As policymakers consider strategies to encourage national
economic growth, they should draw on the growth potential of
rural areas …
 “…recognising that due to lower population density and other
attributes specific to rural places, they face challenges that are
different than those in urban areas
 “Technological innovation, increasing labour productivity and
international openness have provided new business
opportunities to rural dwellers
 “Most rural communities work regularly with both small and
large neighbouring urban centres … due to economic
interactions”

9. +
Creating Breakthrough Innovations
 Frans Johansson – author of the Medici Effect – at the
University of Nebraska Rural Futures Conference (2012)
“Live and work at the intersection – where ideas
from different fields and cultures meet and collide
 “Interdisciplinary collaboration is important in
ensuring success in rural areas”
 Is “meeting and colliding” more difficult than in urban
areas?
 (because the population is sparse and higher education
attracts the brightest potential to the cities? … and will the
internet bridge the separation between rural and urban in
the future?)

10. +
And where does this innovation
score?
Heriot-Watt weaves
together Harris
Tweed history and
future

11. +
Rural development principles: look
for your assets!
• OECD Rural Working Party history
over 15 years
• Concern about rural quality of life, as
growth concentrated in urban areas …
• … made worse by agriculture shedding
labour and mechanising
• Invest in local assets – place
and people
• Land – a key asset in the provision of
ecosystems services … provided to
city consumers (cf Nature’s Metropolis)
contributing to urban growth

12. + Rural growth potential from ecosystems
services (often consumed in urban areas)
 Provisioning services i.e. products obtained from
ecosystems
 Food e.g. crops, fruit, fish
 Fibre and fuel e.g. timber, wool
 Biochemicals, natural medicines and pharmaceuticals
 Genetic resources: genes and genetic information used for
animal/plant breeding and biotechnology
 Ornamental resources e.g. shells, flowers

13. + Rural growth potential in ecosystem regulating
processes
 Air-quality maintenance: ecosystems contribute chemicals to and
extract chemicals from the atmosphere
 Climate regulation e.g. land cover can affect local temperature and
precipitation; globally ecosystems affect greenhouse gas
sequestration and emissions
 Water regulation: ecosystems affect e.g. the timing and magnitude
of runoff, flooding etc.
 Erosion control: vegetative cover plays an important role in soil
retention/prevention of land/asset erosion
 Water purification/detoxification: ecosystems can be a source of
water impurities but can also help to filter out/decompose organic
waste
 Natural hazard protection e.g. storms, floods, landslides
 Bioremediation of waste i.e. removal of pollutants through storage,
dilution, transformation and burial

14. + Rural growth potential in cultural services
(enjoyed by urban dwellers too)
 Many societies place high value on the maintenance of important
landscapes or species
 Aesthetic values: many people find beauty in various aspects of
ecosystems
 Recreation and ecotourism bring visitors and opportunities for
business growth
 Rural areas are the inspiration for art, folklore, architecture etc
 Many religions attach spiritual and religious values to ecosystems
and landscapes
 Social relations: ecosystems affect the types of social relations
that are established e.g. fishing societies

15. +
Urban rural – the dissolving
boundary
 Rural areas provide lots of potentially useful and services that benefit
urban areas, but often non-market goods and difficult to reward rural
producers
 And where are rural areas anyway? Lots of research BUT, searching for
the definitive urban rural boundary = the holy grail
 Some OECD progress; but migration an issue in GDP per head analysis
 the urban folk who travel out to rural areas for work; and
 the mobile, educated rural young people who move to cities
 Michael Woods: “We need to be thinking about rural areas in the twenty
first century not just in relation to the metropolitan society of regional
cities, … but also in terms with how they fit within an increasingly
globalised economy and society – and how they retain a “rural” identity in
this expanded context”

16. +
Globalisation and Europe’s Rural
Regions (Woods et al in DERREG)
What’s happening globally?
 integration of economic systems
 increased mobility of goods and capital across national borders
 concentration of economic influence in transnational corporations with a footloose
approach to capital accumulation
 increased mobility of people
 intensification of communication networks
 stretching of social relations
 circulation and hybridization of culture and knowledge systems.
Uneven geographies of globalization illustrated by different degrees of
 global engagement
 local embeddedness of rural businesses
 international mobility and migration of rural populations
 value placed on environmental capital and sustainable rural development
 governance, capacity building and knowledge systems in rural regions

17. +
Lots of research already
EU Rural research themes FP7 FP6 preFP6 otherstudies
Drivers and trends
FARMPATH,
DERREG
TRANSMANGO
FARO,
AG2020
DORA
SCENAR2020II, SCAR
Foresight
Rural differentiation/typologies PASHMINA,RUFUS SCARLED
OECD typology,
Territorial Indicators
Rural theory ETUDE
RAPIDO
ASPIRE EDORA (ESPON)
Sustainable
development/ecosystems
SOILSERVICECLAIM
AnaEEE, ENVIEVAL
QuESSA
COCONUT
MEACAP
SEAMLESS
SENSOR
renewableenergy
(OECD)
New land management VOLANTE EU-LUPA (ESPON)
Rural employment/enterprise RURAL JOBS CARERA
TERA
RUREMPL
O
SERA, SEGIRA
Value chains GLAMUR
Social dimension SOFAR RESTRIM DEMIFER (ESPON)
multifunctionality/public goods PRIMA, ARANGE
MULTAGRI
TOP-MARD
MEA-SCOPE
EUROLAN PUBLIC GOODS
Knowledge systems/innovation
SOLINSAVALERIE
AgriSPIN(H2020)
urban-rural interaction PUREFOOD
SUPURBFOOD
PLUREL RURBAN(OECD)
governance CORASON PRIDE RuralPolicyReviews
(OECD)
policyimpact
RuDI, SPARD
CAP-IRE
TERESA,
CEEC-
AGRIPOLICY
IMPACT TIPTAP(ESPON)

18. +
But, how much has it helped shape
investments, policy or delivery?
 Some research is driven by academics – delivering excellent
science through published papers and academic conferences
 But, “Rural growth opportunities” ought to warrant a wider
approach to dissemination
So… what does this mean for EU research going forward?
 First, pull together and communicate what we know from recent
work
 And then address the challenges and opportunities over the next
two decades
 … always bearing in mind the potential users/beneficiaries

19. +
So, how can research help policymakers
and investors in the 2020s and 2030s?
 Big challenges/opportunities
 Changing climate (water management, changes in crops)
 Action to mitigate global emissions
 Action to adapt to global emissions
 Economic growth in BRICS and other emerging economies
 Globalisation of trade
 ICT and internal communication >> innovation potential
 Migration (into EU)
 Internal migration (between regions, urban/periurban/rural)
 Ageing population (especially in rural areas)
 Identify alternative realistic goals of European rural policy (outcome:
success = ???) and potential roadmaps to reach them

20. + AND - Apply sustainable development thinking to rural growth?
Draft schema prepared by University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership

21. +
Research into policy, into practice
 “Good research never finds the definitive answers …
 … but identifies convincingly more areas needing research”
 So, how many legislators or officials are lucky enough to have timely research
findings to help design new instruments?
 For example, are the EU’s latest CAP greening measures founded in good research and
analysis?
 What effects will first pillar payments under the current CAP have on innovation,
productivity gains and economic diversification?
 So…
 COMMUNICATE FINDINGS IN APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE TO MINISTERS, OTHER
POLITICIANS, EXECUTIVE STAFF, MAYORS, LOCAL GOVERNMENT, AND
MOTIVATE RURAL ACTORS!
 Tell them how it can help shape their principles and the policies they want to deliver
 Academic papers are simply not sufficient

22. +
Rural growth opportunities:
a phased recipe?
First – know the context
 Pull together all recent research
 Explore futures scenarios given big challenges (eg
SCENAR 2030 encompassing all rural resources
and potential urban consumption)
 Use “Big Data” to plot interrelation between rural
and other areas – domestically, internationally
Then – establish the development potential
 Better specification of ecosystems services
potential – and its translation into policy,
instruments and practice
 Economic spin-offs from investment in
ecosystems services; rewarding those who deliver
(eg farmers) as well as spin off business (eg
tourism)
…and explore how obstacles to success
can be removed
• The “drive gap” in rural institutions (local
government and economic development)
and equally in many small rural businesses
Look for good practice illustrations
• Comparative studies of success factors in
both leading and lagging areas
… and engage government and industry
leaders in the conclusions

23. +
A final word from Angel Gurria,
OECD Secretary General
“The success of large numbers of rural regions highlights
the potential that can be tapped when rural communities
are able to mobilise their place-based assets”
 So, how can HORIZON 2020 research involving DG Agri and
colleagues in other DGs with interests in land use and
development help
 take forward social science and local economic theory
 help identify the place-based assets with potential
 help politicians at all levels shape spending, taxation and regulation
 help give rural communities confidence to invest
 … and
 thus encourage new openings for rural growth in an increasingly global
world