As the end of summer marks the return to routine, conferences, congresses, and networking events also resume. This has been the case in recent months, during which, as part of the European project RUSTIK, we participated in the XVIII Congress of the European Association of Agricultural Economists held in Bonn, and in the Second Regional Workshop of RUSTIK held in Sober.

In the first case, from August 26 to 29, around 1,000 people from the field of agricultural and applied economics gathered in the city of Bonn to attend, among other events, the 43rd Congress “Food Systems Transformation in Challenging Times” organized by the EAAE. There, Guillermina Fernández presented, within the RUSTIK consortium, a poster titled “A Decision Support System for the Implementation of Land Management Policies. Application to the New ‘Model Settlements’ in Galicia, NW Spain,” which reviewed the decision support system (DSS) promoted by Laborate and ECOAGRASOC in collaboration with AGADER, aimed at optimizing the selection of candidate populations to become model villages.

Back in Galicia, on October 9, the second of three regional dissemination workshops scheduled within the RUSTIK framework was held at Áurea Palacio de Sober. This time, the goal was to reflect on the multi-actor approach and how methodologies such as “living labs” can be useful for improving rural policies—from their design to implementation and evaluation. The event also featured participation from the twin project GRANULAR and the Down To Earth project, which explored how the collaborative perspective takes shape from design to practice. The day began with a welcome session followed by the presentation of the three projects, with Guillermina Fernández participating; and a second part in which the importance of multi-actor governance and the transfer of results to political and administrative action was discussed in a roundtable format, featuring Mariam Ferreira from RUSTIK.

Finally, Carlos Díaz from AGADER gave a brief introduction to the concept and application of model villages and offered us the opportunity to tour Francos de Proendos to observe firsthand the actions carried out thanks to the implementation of the Model Village.

It is clear that model villages continue to be a tool that sparks interest among experts from multiple disciplines who are unfamiliar with this and other initiatives under the Galician Land Recovery Act. On both occasions, the implementation and design of model villages drew public attention, as did the logic behind the decision support tool proposed by RUSTIK, which, in addition to being fed with public and open data, helps to enhance the value of fieldwork with stakeholders.

Two events with very different characteristics that share a commitment to systems based on collaboration and transparency, and a transition toward an inclusive territorial management model.

RUSTIK is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program, under grant agreement GA 101061051. The work carried out within this project is also supported by Innovate UK through the Horizon Europe Guarantee scheme.

More information:
RUSTIK: Inside the "Aldea Modelo" of Francos de Proendos (Galicia, Spain)
RUSTIK Galician Regional Workshop | October 2025, Sober (Galicia, Spain)