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This issue of the EU Rural Review explores some of the latest thinking and practice in how rural entrepreneurship can be supported to take advantage of emerging opportunities and latent potential in order to develop new forms of successful rural business.

Without seeking to ignore the many challenges facing Europe’s rural areas, the issue overviews new opportunities emerging from sectors ranging from the biotechnology to the experience economy and from possibilities created by new information technologies to changing consumer demand.

Finally, it examines how the Rural Development Programmes can be deployed strategically to take advantage of these opportunities, finding smarter ways to deliver effective business support and making targeted efforts to overcome some of the specifically rural challenges.

The final report of the ENRD Thematic Group (TG) on 'Smart and Competitive Rural Businesses' (2016-2017) summarises the main recommendations and outputs from the TG's work. Additionally, it overviews the context, objectives, approach, methods and activities of the TG.

• identifying new trends, opportunities and ‘wild ideas’ for rural businesses; 
• business support approaches to help realise innovative business ideas;
• supporting access to broadband and digitisation opportunities; and 
• building digital capacity. 

This is the main report of a dedicated ENRD workshop exploring the topics of Transnational Cooperation (TNC) and LEADER Innovation through the use of a practitioner-led approach as a networking and capacity-building tool.

This factsheet overviews the general National Rural Network (NRN) landscape across the EU, the implementation of NRN tasks, and issues that influence networking at the regional and local levels.