The following report was written as part of the ESIRA – ENHANCING SOCIAL INNOVATION IN RURAL AREAS project, which has received funding from the European Union Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101136253. The aim of the ESIRA project, as stated in the application form, is to contribute to the development of innovative social economy initiatives for rural inclusion and development in rural areas by supporting enabling frameworks, well-interconnected policy architecture and directly piloting innovative solutions which ultimately build more inclusive, resilient and prosperous rural areas. To reach this goal, (as stated in the Grant Agreement) the project will implement: · the research of community-led rural innovation spaces able to connect and empower actors, reinforce the social capital and sense of community, considering the great diversity of rural areas within Europe, and eventually · nurturing and piloting social economy initiatives that strengthen the inclusiveness and living conditions of different groups of population in vulnerable situation, from the improvement in the provision of (social) services, economic diversification, and sustainable management of the natural capital. This will enable to · stocktake and formulate recommendations for policymakers to better support the third sector and local communities, increasing the understanding of the needs and challenges of vulnerable groups of population and social economy, and · boost the knowledge-exchange among local actors, building up their capacities and facilitating the scale up and replication of social economy initiatives across Rural Europe. Part of this work is a set of research called “Research on drivers of rural marginalisation and the opportunities of community-led social economy initiatives for social inclusion”. It includes T4.1 results of national contexts and the comparative study, where task leads, and partners connected to the pilot areas have conducted data gathering and analysis in order to present the situation of the ESIRA pilot areas. The main aim of this report is to synthesise information regarding the situation of ESIRA pilot areas, and the communities established there. The analysis must reflect the situation of people living in pilot areas in the selected countries and regions, highlighting the social and economic similarities and differences in the challenges they face; to stocktake the drivers of vulnerability and social exclusion in representative rural contexts (i.e., considering particularities of different geographical areas or groups of population). This paper is closely related to deliverable D4.2 "Multi-level analysis of social economy initiatives in rural areas and their contribution to local development".
Koltai et al. (Wed,) studied this question.