The ‘LEADER community initiatives’ and the ‘LEADER approach’ have been commonly accepted as an innovative way for development of rural areas in the EU. It is widely assumed that promoting growth in rural areas can be achieved through partnerships between representatives of three classes...

This paper investigates the question of promotion of more efficient use of energy and for an increase in supply and use of energy from the renewable sources of energy in rural areas. The empirical research is based on the analysis of the survey evidence that is obtained by the written...

A fuzzy logic model for quantifying farm households’ potential for non-farm income diversification is developed and applied to 1,077 farm households in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia. About three quarters of households have a diversification potential, but not all households...

The rural areas in Bulgaria cover more then 80% of the country territory and account for about 29% of the population. Their development depends strongly on agricultural sector. The paper examines structural changes in agriculture, labour market situation in rural areas and presents the main...

Peripheral rural areas are particularly affected by demographic changes. The research question is: how the involved rural actors interact with each other to react to the resulting challenges, and why does this mode of interaction come about? The contribution presents empirical data from a survey...

The paper focuses on a new theoretical-methodological approach to interpreting functional transformation processes of farms located in rural areas and marked by a delay in development. We have defined a theoretical paradigm of optimal value portfolio (OVP) which considers -in a new light-...

Since 1999, Scotland has (re)gained a considerable degree of political independence from the rest of the UK, and a minority nationalist government since 2007 has determined a strong general policy agenda, including ambitious climate change commitments. This new political framework is being...

This paper analyses expert attitudes to managing rural development in both established (EU15) and New Member States (NMS). It draws on case studies of five regions in the EU15 that have undergone, at least in some respects, successful rural development post-accession. Lessons of best practice...

The research starts from the necessity to create specific tools for evaluating the impacts of rural development policies on fragile areas. The objective of this study is to exploit a synthetic measure of marginality, obtained through a specific tool set by IRES Piemonte (Institute of Socio...

This paper focuses on networks as determinants of rural migration and the importance of networks in a rural development perspective. Furthermore the impact of public goods and amenities on migration decisions in rural regions is investigated. Special attention is paid on heterogeneity in peoples...