Smart rural development

Gunnar Prause, Ivan Boevsky

Abstract: Normally the term “smart” is associated with urban or industrial contexts like it appears in “smart cities” or “smart manufacturing” so that the linkage to rural contexts is often neglected. But there are also concepts about “smart specialisation” and “smart rural areas” which target non-urban areas and which try to improve the development perspectives of rural areas. An important instrument in all smart approaches is digitalization, no matter if urban or rural areas are discussed. Especially for rural areas a better internet access can help to bridge the distance to cities and to overcome rural shortcomings in logistics, mobility and supply problems or to medical care for more elderly population. New IT solutions are even able to generate attractive alternatives in the countryside for new working models and remote work places, new opportunities for education and training as well as offer more tailormade administrational services. The paper addresses the research question of how smart regional development concepts for rural areas might look like and which smart approaches for rural areas have been realised and tested already.

Keywords: digitalization; regional development; smart rural areas; smart specialization

Date published: 2017-10-09