Improved tools for Entrepreneurship in rural areas.
The project has screened more than 400 relevant past European projects and analysed the results in order to produce four tailor-made tools for entrepreneurship in rural areas comprising a) a database of 47 business cases and 9 innovative business strategies, b) a transformation and support tool allowing entrepreneurs to adapt the business model to their case, c) a business environment tool allowing stakeholders to support rural entrepreneurs by sharing recommendation and offering a comprehensive framework, and d) a toolkit for supporting cooperation, clustering and networking.
Improving knowledge of business models emerging in rural areas.
RUBIZMO has identified, analysed and benchmarked 13 successful business models in order to understand their potential for development and replication in other areas. The lessons from the business models have included in the transformation and support tool for entrepreneurs and fed the recommendations for policy-makers. 5 scientific papers promoted the results, which were also presented at 10 international conferences. In the first reporting period, one scientific paper was published and the provisional projects results were presented at 8 conferences. In the second reporting period the results were presented at 19 conferences/events and a further 3 scientific papers produced.
Increasing the potential for rural economic diversification, added value and job creation in a variety of rural areas.
RUBIZMO created an open access training material repository where training modules in many different languages exist in several formats (video, animated videos, lectures, Powerpoints etc.) for future entrepreneurs, created a European Rural Development Academy, and organised dissemination events across Europe. An estimated 1110 students in agricultural and related sciences, 420 businesses and 1286 innovation support actors directly learnt about the benefits of innovative business models through capacity building and dissemination activities. 56 training events were organised across Europe with more than 2800 people trained, 21 cafés talks were organized on a weekly basis during 7 months and 7 virtual visits were organised in 10 different sites replacing the initially planned virtual study visits.
Making rural economies and societies more resilient to global changes.
The exploitation activities of the project have ensured long-term impact, and project tools supported the creation of new rural networks and collaborative platforms to be built on local strengths. 47 businesses were coached to help them develop their own business plans based on some of the resilient business models identified by the project, ensuring a real and direct impact on rural economies. 13 businesses began the realisation/implementation stage of initiating new business models in the project lifetime.
Improving the delivery of ecosystem services resulting from innovative forms of valorisation.
Within the virtual library, a total of 15 innovative business cases for enhanced delivery of ecosystem services have been featured, with a special focus on the creation of new value chains and digitisation. Regarding the number of business models, 8 were featured in the virtual library. Two inspirational videos presenting a specific business case based on ecosystem services were produced and disseminated across Europe, with subtitles in six different languages.
