Start-Up Village People

On the 28th of february I attended a Conference in the heart of the EU: in the Berlaymont building. The topic was Start-Up Villages. We have one of these villages in Nijmegen (NL), just in front of the central station. Likewise Amsterdam has a village for start-ups on the campus in Watergraafsmeer, the countryside of the city. Not so: a start-up village is truly an initiative in a real village, with less than 15.000 inhabitants. As we understood such villages must entail innovative start ups. Not any innovative entrepreneur with a nail studio, nor the couple starting a sushi take-away.

The issue is politically important: 28% of Europeans live in rural areas, being remote rural areas, rural perifere of urban regions and may be (I missed that one) industrialised rural areas like typical in the SE Netherlands, Baden-Wurttemberg, Veneto or Pais Vasco. The latter one did not fit in the classification. Moreover the definition of rural areas is such that the Netherlands do not have rural areas. All are too close to a city.?However being co-owner of a house in France, in the Creuse, that is a remote rural area, as there are so many of in the EU, I understand the reality of regions affected?for more than 100 years by first an “exode rural”, then a de-industrialisation and now a lack of (digital) services. Exode rural is an issue; as the brightest kids leave the rural areas in order to grasp more opportunities in the cities. Some come back, it was coined as trampoline villages: people leave and come back. They do so if amenities are acceptable, especially child care and schools.?

The conference was attended by no less than 4 EU Commissioners, of which one was also remote. Commissioner Gabriel was stressing the New European Innovation Agenda, with its focus on strategic autonomy, on entrepreneurship and scaling up and on widening participation. Commissioner Ferreira was therefor pointing at the innovation divide. But looking at the innovation divide we have several ones: a global divide between Europe and the USA, a European divide between NW Europe versus South and Central Europe, between central regions and peripheral regions within countries and finally between (university) cities and rural communities. So how do we address these divides, without looking at them as zero sum games. It is too serious for a game anyway.

One of the speaker was so honest to point to a good analysis of what factors are at play in rural areas. As a geographer I understand “factors” as being “factors of production”. A more thorough analysis of the factors was not made, so my feeling was we were a bit circling around the topic without really addressing it. Was it the production environment (low rents, natural endowment) or the production structure (specialisation, agglomeration benefits, skills) that are key. Digital accessibility was mentioned as important, but a focus on remote ICT work and online shopping was seen as not so attractive. Taking benefit of rural produce and of touristic potential was also seen as too rustic, deep tech should also flourish in rural areas. Everyone agreed that bottom-up approaches should prevail (or endogenous growth models) but taking care of smart specialisation (which seen from a village perspective is most often considered as top-down) is also important. Someone was so blunt as to say that we need to speak the language of start-ups and rural areas, in order to be successful. That was said after 14.30, and no-one had said so before.

As a former member of the Committee of the Regions I was happy to hear several times, that multilevel governance is key. However I am still curious to see that concept operationalised. Another speaker stressed that Switzerland was a successful case of rural innovation, because cantons have competences and budgets (and Switzerland wants to avoid rural exodus at all costs). Another speaker stressed the importance of setting up functional regions. But in most EU countries functional regions rarely have budgets and hardly any democratic control. A later speaker stressed the relevance of CLLR instruments, which are extremely hard to put in place. My take is that local initiatives are paramount, but that support should come from the regional level and that in some shape or form they should network to learn from each other. The I3 instrument was mentioned as a good instrument. It is, but is a very complex one to organise and apply for (I was successful in one).

So I was a bit disappointed, although Mariya Gabriel gave us escape routes to consider. The importance of enhancing the strategic autonomy, but also the bio-based transition would give opportunities and the digital revolution does not only mean electronic cottages (let alone home-made marmelades to sell online), but possibly also a rejuvenation of industry and services in rural areas. I take that as a homework and challenge.