On 30 June 2021, the DESIRA Rural Digitalisation Forum (RDF) held a webinar to discuss the role of digitalisation in the European Commission’s long-term vision for rural areas (LTVRA), and the policy support needed to ensure that digitalization leads to the sustainable development of rural areas.

With this EU initiative – developed through a participatory process with rural actors which included a public consultation, stakeholder-led events and an ENRD conference among others – the European Commission launches a holistic vision that proposes a new Rural Pact and a Rural Action Plan with a number of flagship initiatives to help rural communities and businesses reach their full potential by 2040.

The H2020 project DESIRA contributed to this process by capitalising on the knowledge produced so far in the project, and gathering the views of experts of the DESIRA RDF on how digital technologies can contribute to build desirable futures for rural areas by 2040. The RDF also proposes 7 guiding principles that need to be applied in order to boost sustainable digitalisation in agriculture, forestry and rural areas.

A report with the highlights of the webinar can be found here

Also the intervention of Gianluca Brunori, coordinator of DESIRA, presenting the 7 guiding principles proposed by the project during the webinar can be seen in this video