The main risk factors for rural innovation in Europe: an analysis of 200 case studies
European Journal of Innovation Management
ISSN: 1460-1060
Article publication date: 16 May 2022
Issue publication date: 23 November 2023
Abstract
Purpose
European rural development programmes are driving multi-actor interactive innovation initiatives and alliances to create an environment in which innovation acts as a tool for accelerating rural development processes. In Europe, where rural areas are facing many challenges, identifying which challenges, difficulties, obstacles or risk factors that interactive innovation projects have had to face in rural areas while being planned and set up would be interesting. The objective of this research work was to, therefore, identify and analyse the risk factors of 200 rural projects and initiatives that were selected as case studies from the whole of Europe.
Design/methodology/approach
The employed methodology consisted in conducting interviews to subsequently perform statistical independence analyses of the qualitative variables characterising the found projects and risk factors.
Findings
The findings indicated that most of the risks that rural projects and initiatives faced were related to the social domain which was, in turn, the fundamental pillar of interactive innovation. Dependence was found between social risk factors appearing and the innovation type carried out; the risk factors corresponding to the political–legal risks category and the project or initiative coordinating country; and the economic–technical risks category and the initiatives' geographic magnitude.
Originality/value
This paper exposes the main risks identified within various rural innovation initiatives and projects around Europe. For this purpose, a statistical analysis of independence was performed, allowing us to generate reliable and accurate results of the main risks associated with certain descriptive characteristics (coordinating region, domain, innovation type, gender balance and geographic magnitude) of the initiatives studied.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: This work was conducted within the LIAISON project. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 773418. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent a position of the commission who will not be liable for the use made of such information.
The authors would like to thank all Liaison partners, especially colleagues Andrew Fieldsend and Evelyn Cronin who provided the analytical framework and methodology for selecting and obtaining the results of the 200 case studies on which this paper was based.
Citation
Díaz-Puente, J.M., Martín-Fernández, S., Suárez, D., De Castro-Muñoz, V. and Bettoni, M. (2023), "The main risk factors for rural innovation in Europe: an analysis of 200 case studies", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 26 No. 6, pp. 1603-1618. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-01-2022-0037
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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