Publicada por Lab. Territorio

Strategies for the revitalization of villages in Europe and Galicia: Smart Villages and Model Settlements

Inés Santé presented the European Smart Villages Strategy at the conference O Rexurdir das Aldeas (The Revival of Villages). The event was organised by the Juana de Vega Foundation and the Eduardo Pondal Foundation, on 3rd October in the village of Couto (Ponteceso). The conference explored the evolution of the European policy on Smart villages since 2017, with the launch of the EU Action in favour of smart villages, and through the projects Smart Eco-Social Villages, Smart Rural 21 and Smart Rural 27.
 
In the same year (2019) that the results of the pilot project Smart Eco-Social Villages were presented to the European Parliament, Galicia began working on the model villages (“aldeas modelo”) initiative. Although model villages were born with a different objective – protecting settlements against forest fires and the recovery of abandoned land for agricultural production - the regional law 11/2021 on recovery of agricultural land in Galicia incorporates the figure of the Dynamization Plans for model settlements. These are fully aligned with the strategies of smart villages since they pursue the full revitalisation of the villages through rehabilitation actions, the promotion of economic activity and technological innovations.

Santé, I. (2024, octubre 8). Estratexias para a dinamización das aldeas en Europa e Galicia: Smart Villages e Aldeas Modelo. O rexurdir das aldeas, Fundación Eduardo Pondal, O Couto (Ponteceso). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13902967