The project will foster resilience in rural areas, by upgrading and co-designing, co-developing and co-validating with local communities a set of smart solutions, integrated within Smart Innovation Packages (SIPs) able to tackle pressing socio-economic and environmental challenges and promote a community-led transition pathway that will empower rural people to act for change. SMART ERA’s main ambitions are: a) building the first large-scale European-wide solution for systematic rural data screening and smartness analysis; b) using co-design methods and techniques to involve residents and stakeholders in the design and validation of SIPs, as well as in the collection of old and creation of new data sources; c) proposing a unified Smartness/Digital Maturity assessment method; d) providing unique and timely evidence-based and performance-focused recommendations to upgrade the new local, national and European policy instruments and enhance their efficiency and efficacy in supporting smart villages across the EU; e) fostering cooperation among pilot regions, as well as among the four EU macro-regional strategies and improve their rural communities’ ability to address socio-economic and environmental challenges.

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