Innovative and resilient: rural areas of the future

Many rural areas in Germany and Europe are currently undergoing a rapid change, and this is set to continue. While climate change, the energy transition, the food transition and increasing digitalization are directly and profoundly changing almost all rural areas, developments such as demographic change, migration and infrastructure changes often have very different effects, depending on the region. Some rural areas suffer from the loss of people and jobs due to migration, while others are booming and growing rapidly as a result of improved infrastructure connections. 

As an interdisciplinary team of applied researchers, we often look at different developments from both a holistic and an individual perspective. Our focus is on preserving the core characteristics and strengths of rural areas and on taking up and implementing impulses for shaping a rural future.

We conduct research in two main areas:

Rural innovation spaces

We explore how public authorities create and strengthen innovation ecosystems to promote progress for society as a whole. Rural areas play a particularly central role in this. On the one hand, they are often already very innovative and innovation-friendly, and on the other hand, they are often particularly well suited to becoming an innovation ecosystem themselves as living labs. The TIP business unit has initiated numerous projects that focus on rural areas, such as “Horizonte Erweitern” and “RADLÄR”. A key motivation of our research is not just to research “about rural areas”, but to work for and with people and in very different rural areas.

Resilient rural areas

We address the question of how the capital of rural areas can be preserved despite increasing challenges. Our focus is on disaster protection, supply security (see also “Innovations in health protection and disaster medicine”, “Civil security”, “Synergies: Security, Defense and Space”) and climate change adaptation (see also “Sustainable transformation”). In projects such as “RiskPACC” and “RESKON”, we also work specifically with partners from rural areas.