Several ENRD Contact Point team members took part in the Agri Innovation Summit (11-12 October 2017 – Lisbon, Portugal) facilitating workshop discussions on specific approaches and tools that can enable rural areas to benefit from current and emerging innovation opportunities. Key messages from these workshops highlight that:

• Supporting rural services through social and digital innovation in areas such as health, education and mobility would contribute to making ‘Smart Villages’ a reality. This could be achieved through bottom-up strategic planning, ‘rural proofing’, linking pilot initiatives, and strengthening the role of LEADER/CLLD.
• Business support systems should combine innovative, flexible and integrated policy approaches with tools such as business accelerators and advisory services for non-agricultural businesses. Find out more about ENRD work on smart rural business support.
• Extending digital opportunities for rural businesses and communities should start with bottom-up strategies identifying local needs and digitisation tools such as ‘rural digital hubs’.
• High-speed broadband connectivity is key for rural communities to access innovative and smart (e-)services. LEADER/CLLD initiatives could contribute to developing or upgrading broadband infrastructures by bringing people together and aggregating demand.