SIMRA (Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas) is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. SIMRA seeks to advance understanding of social innovation and innovative governance in agriculture, forestry and rural development, and how to boost them, particularly in marginalised rural areas across Europe, with a focus on the Mediterranean region (including non-EU) where there is limited evidence of outcomes and supporting conditions.

Since 2016, Euromontana has been involved in the SIMRA project to gather examples of social innovations in mountain areas and to better understand their benefits for local communities.

SIMRA is organising its final conference in Brussels on 19th and 20th February 2020. The event will showcase the project’s main findings and discuss their policy implications at all levels (EU, national, regional and local), and with regards to the legislative reforms still in discussion for the next EU programming period 2021-2027. Speakers will also discuss the policy opportunities at different levels to encourage social innovation and the possibilities to empower rural communities.

Programme

The event will target different audiences for the 2 days. Please read the detailed programmes and see the different target audiences.

Day 1: during this first day, our expert speakers will address the following questions: How can the CAP better align with other policies to better support social innovation/innovation ecosystems in rural areas? How do we make synergies between different European funds and programmes to truly support the development of rural areas and communities? What kind of measures offer the most effective support? How can national and regional level policies better support community empowerment?

Target audience for day 1: European Commission, Members of the European Parliament, regional authorities, NGOs, European networks, researchers, and all those working on social innovation and/or rural areas

Day 2: during this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to learn how to use the tools developed by SIMRA to support the implementation of social innovations, to evaluate social innovations in rural areas and to discuss policy-making bottlenecks and enabler sin the field of social innovation.

Target audience for day 2: local practitioners, RDP evaluators, policy-makers, managing authorities, Horizon 2020 project implementers, researchers, etc who monitor or implement social innovation.

Logistic & registration

The event takes place in two different places for the 2 days:

• February 19 – venue: University Foundation, rue d’Egmont 11, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
• February 20 – venue: Scotland House, Rond-point Robert Schuman 6, 1040 Brussels, Belgium

Interpretation will be provided in English, French, Spanish for Day 1. No interpretation will be provided on February 20, the official language will be English. Due to a limited number of places, especially for the February 20th workshop, registrations will be confirmed individually by email.

Event material