Places and people matter when it comes achieving of a more sustainable Europe. The Sustainable Development Goals and the ecological and digital transitions brought forward by the European Green Deal with its farm to fork and biodiversity strategies, zero pollution action plan, common fisheries policy (CFP)^[1], along with the recent pandemic, bring challenges and opportunities that vary for different places and people. Rural (including mountains and sparsely populated areas) and coastal areas, play a key role in protecting, managing, and using natural resources. The provision of both private and public goods from these areas depends on the resilience and attractiveness of communities there and the capacity of people living and working there to enjoy an adequate level of well-being, which should be guaranteed by, e.g. the access to good quality services. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted deficiencies in digital infrastructures and economic opportunities that hamper resilience. It also highlighted the importance of high-quality and biodiverse green and blue spaces for the health and well-being of local communities, in primis, but also for that of visitors of these areas.

Innovation is a key enabler of the long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas (LTVRA)^[2] that aims to overcome the challenges outlined above and make rural areas stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous by 2040. Urban communities generally offer better access to many services but are also more vulnerable to supply-chain disruptions, as shown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, they have a key role to play in fostering sustainable production and consumption as major demand drivers. The New European Bauhaus initiative^[3] offers possibilities to redesign living spaces to improve sustainability, inclusiveness, and aesthetics, setting out a path to a more resilient, inclusive, healthy and green (built) environment. In all communities, social, cultural and behavioural drivers play an important role in either enabling or slowing down transitions. Knowledge and innovative solutions need to be developed to strengthen every community’s resilience and capacity to contribute to and benefit from the upcoming transitions in an economy that works for all territories and ensures a fair and just transition leaving no one behind.

Under this destination, transdisciplinary R&I with a strong social, behavioural and humanities sciences dimension (SSH), which pay and attention to gender aspects, will enable a sustainable, balanced, equitable and inclusive development and management of rural, coastal and urban areas in three different ways.

Firstly, it will aim to increase our understanding of the different ways of climate, environmental, socio-economic and demographic changes affect rural, coastal and urban areas in order to identify ways to turn these changes into equal, and, when needed equitable, opportunities for people wherever they live. This would strengthen territorial cohesion and enable a just transition. Secondly, it will explore innovative ways to tailor policy responses to the place-based challenges and needs identified at various levels of governance. Thirdly, it will support bottom-up community-led innovation to empower communities to develop, test and upscale solutions that answer global challenges in locally adapted ways. Achieving policy goals require providing people with more equitable access to the knowledge and skills needed to make informed choices and ensure they are actively engaged in the conservation. It also requires natural resources to be managed in a sustainable and circular manner, from production or service provision to consumption, in the spirit of the EU competence framework for sustainability. Rural, coastal and urban communities need improved labour conditions, quality of life and long-term socio-economic prospects in the context of major transitions and rising threats to climate, resources and health. This is particularly the case for women, young people older people, people with disabilities, people in vulnerable situations (e.g. income falling below the poverty line, or at risk of poverty), migrants, ethnic minorities and indigenous people and those hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their capacity to drive community-led innovations and their resilience must be increased across the diverse European territories including remote and peripheral places such as mountains, forests, archipelagos, sparsely populated areas, as well as the Arctic. The necessary changes will be facilitated and resilient, smart, and climate friendly production and lifestyles will be supported through mobilising the forces of i) digital transformation, ii) upgraded innovation ecosystems, iii) cultural and natural heritage, iv) nature-based solutions, more sustainable and regenerative tourism as well as social and policy innovation will facilitate necessary changes and support resilient, smart, and climate friendly production and lifestyles.

This destination will in particular:

• Address the spatial and socio-economic or behavioural drivers of the European Green Deal (including farm to fork, biodiversity and sustainable and smart mobility strategies), especially its just transition component.
• It will make a key contribution to the flagship initiative ‘R&I for rural communities’ and to the four areas of work under the long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas: making areas stronger, connected, resilient, prosperous. It will in particular help achieve to climate targets by putting the focus on the climate-neutrality of rural communities that have specific needs and are often neglected by climate action.
• It will complement the New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative that connects the European Green Deal to our living and public spaces; The NEB aims to achieve deep transformation of these spaces, closely involving the public, and integrating the core NEB values of sustainability, inclusion and aesthetics. It will make a key contribution to improving social inclusion in Europe in line with the principles of the European pillar for social rights, the EU social economy action plan and contributing to the strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities for 2021-2030.
• It will contribute to the: i) implementation of the new joint communication on the Arctic (adopted on 13 October 2021), ii) the fourth Arctic Science Ministerial Joint Statement^[4] and iii) to the All- Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance.
• It will contribute to the: i) implementation of the competence framework for sustainability prepared by the Commission^[5] and the Council Recommendation on education for environmental sustainability for learners of all ages and at all levels of education (part of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030)^[6].
• It will help implement the EU agenda for tourism (expected in late 2022).
• It will contribute and link to the just, green and digital transitions called for by the European Green Deal, the European industrial strategy, the circular economy action plan and the updated bioeconomy strategy, by exploiting the potential of digital technologies (e.g., using local digital twins for participatory urban planning and evidence-based policy-making).

The following outcomes are expected.

• Policy makers and the public will have a better citizens understanding of social inclusion challenges, the circumstances of people in vulnerable situations in rural and coastal areas and how to strengthen social resilience, including in relation to ecosystem services, biodiversity and natural heritage for coastal areas.
• Policy makers will have a better understanding of the behavioural and structural drivers of people’s lifestyle choices and people’s perceptions of rural life in the aftermath of COVID-19 and of the long-term trends and opportunities for rural areas.
• A sustainable post-COVID recovery will be enabled in urban, rural and coastal communities through biodiversity-friendly actions, and valorisation of natural and cultural heritage for sustainable recovery, professional, collective and personal attitudes.
• There will be an improvement connections, strategies and governance arrangements that enable synergistic development of rural, coastal and urban areas and more integrated territorial policies and interventions in a growing number of localities and across several sectors.
• Rural, urban and coastal actors will be engaged in a just and green transition. They will be equipped with strategies and innovations to contribute to the EU’s climate-neutrality by 2050 and benefit from a climate-neutral economy.
• Prosperity will increase thanks to the deployment of business models that are fit for the future and greater job opportunities will be provided for rural and coastal people, particularly in relation to territorial and marine economies and critical resources (soil, water, biodiversity). This is in line with the objectives of the EU Missions ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’, ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters’, and ‘Adaptation to climate change’.
• More innovative and integrated policy framework will be upgraded and developed, capitalising on international knowledge exchange, including indigenous, traditional and local knowledge^[7] and cultural heritage in a bottom-up approach.
• Knowledge on the costs and benefits of urban farming and improved policy frameworks will be strengthened to maximise its benefits for European society at large across all dimensions of sustainability.
• More diverse and systemic approaches and innovative solutions (digital, nature-based, social and community-led) will be developed with and for local communities and there is an increase in the number of local actors with improved capacity to sustain these innovative processes and take up these solutions.
• Connections between food provision and multi-functional nature-based solutions for the benefit and well-being of people will be increased. Resilience (climate adaptation mechanisms) will also increase through the combination of the vision of the New European Bauhaus initiative to ‘call on all Europeans to imagine and build together a sustainable and inclusive future that is beautiful for our eyes, minds, and souls’ with a sustainable food systems approach and make use of Novel sources of inspiration will be put to best use.
• Understanding, support and engagement will increase among young people, professionals, authorities, decision makers and the public for all dimensions of sustainability.
• Local, coastal and policy communities will use coastal and nature-based heritage, culture and ecosystem services as a basis for potentially year-round diversified sustainable eco-tourism activities.
• A framework will be developed to measure communities’ well-being beyond economic indicators (e.g. social, environmental) and use both to create collaborative community management models, including for sustainable and/or regenerative tourism.

Expected impact

Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway to achieving resilient, inclusive, just, healthy and green rural, coastal and urban communities and more specifically one or several of the following expected impacts:

• Rural, coastal and urban areas are developed in a sustainable, balanced, equitable and inclusive manner thanks to a better understanding of the i) environmental, socio-economic, behavioural, cultural, architectural and demographic structures, ii) needs and drivers of change and their interconnections, and iii) how digital, nature-based, social and community-led innovations are deployed.
• Rural, coastal and urban communities are empowered to i) act for change, ii) be better prepared to achieve climate-neutrality and adapt to climate change, and iii) use the digital and green transitions to increase resilience and provide positive long-term prospects.
• Rural communities are equipped with upgraded innovation ecosystems and innovative and smarter circular solutions that i) increase access to services and job opportunities, including for women, young people in vulnerable situations, ii) increase their attractiveness and iii) reduce the feeling of being left behind, even in remote locations like mountains and outermost regions.
• Sustainable development of coastal areas, including coastal protection and resilience, is enhanced, reaping the benefits of social, digital and community-led innovations, to deliver nature-based and scientifically validated solutions to current coastal socio-economic and environmental threats.
• Urban and peri-urban communities – including people in vulnerable situations – can access, afford and choose healthy, nutritious and environmental-friendly food.

Communities in natural and coastal areas can offer sustainable, quality, environmentally and socially friendly tourism, recreational and leisure activities.

Proposals are invited against the following topic(s):

[1] Common Fishery Policy https://oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu/policy/common-fisheries-policy-cfp_en.

[2] Long Term Vision for Rural Areas, https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/new-push-european-democracy/long-term-vision-rural-areas_en.

[3] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_21_4627.

[4] The Commission has signed the Joint statement of the third Arctic science ministerial and committed to further support Arctic science, including integrating traditional and indigenous knowledge.

[5] https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/greencomp.

[6] https://education.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2022-01/proposal-council-recommendation-learning-environmental-sustainability_0.pdf.

[7] Reference for using this expression is UNESCO work: https://en.unesco.org/links.

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