Development of rural areas in Poland and regional smart specialisation strategies

Michał Dudek

Abstract: An important role in socio-economic changes in rural areas plays the innovations. Currently, much attention to the issue of rural economic progress is devoted. This is reflected in the EU cohesion policy changes, which focus on the activation and support of the development of new technologies, economic, social and environmental solutions in member states and regions. An instrument of the new EU policy, is a smart specialization, i.e. investment priorities defined by individual states and regions. The paper defines the term of smart specialization and focuses on national and regional smart specializations in Poland. Identified specializations from the perspective of rural and agricultural development were described and assessed. Analysis showed that in the vast majority of Polish regions the areas of smart specialisation are strongly related to the activities typical of rural economy. They include for instance: production of healthy and safe food, agriculture, agricultural-food processing, renewable sources of energy or tourism, what should be perceived as an opportunity for improvement of the socio-economic situation on these areas. However, the issues of rural development are not expressly visible in the described strategies and policy instruments undertaken on their basis. Additionally, it should be emphasised that the evaluation of smart specialization’s influence on the rural areas of Polish regions is problematic at the present stage.

Keywords: development; region; rural areas; smart specialisation; strategy

Date published: 2018-02-09