FUTURAL
Smart solutions tailored to rural communities’ needs
F
UTURAL aims to deliver a set of digital Smart Solutions (SS) under 5 Smart Solution domains to address pressing social and environmental challenges. An integrated metasearch platform providing a one-stop shop for SS will be the gateway to FUTURAL’s solutions, enabling search and access to SS developed by similar initiatives.
FUTURAL will prototype, test, pilot and demonstrate community-led social, technological and business innovations based on the proposed SS in six rural pilot areas in the EU, representing different geographical and socio-cultural contexts. An interdisciplinary consortium of partners and a multi-actor approach will pave a coherent path towards the FUTURAL innovations through joint actions and governance systems.
FUTURAL will engage rural communities and pursue public-private interactions to develop new social practices that enable market adoption and widespread social change. A clearly outlined networking, EU-wide Rural Innovation Forum (EU-RIF), building on links with key organisations, networks, projects and initiatives within the European rural development ecosystem will also be developed.
The project’s Open Call will fund projects that will develop their own SS, based on the five FUTURAL SS domains, to be applied in other rural areas and be available on the project’s metasearch platform. A vibrant and sustainable ecosystem will be created around FUTURAL to maximise the impact of the project. The broad application of the project innovations will be enabled through the creation of business models tailored to the needs of different rural contexts and social groups. Policy recommendations and governance frameworks will be co-created in multi-actor workshops in the project’s EU-RIF to support, among others, the European Green Deal, the European Digital Strategy, the European Pillar of Social Rights and the EU’s long-term vision for rural areas.

Funding program | Horizon Europe |
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Call | HORIZON-CL6-2022-COMMUNITIES-02-01 |
GA No. | 101083958 |
Duration | 2023-2027 |
EC Funding | € 7.222.408,75 |
Website | futural-project.eu |
# Sectors | bioeconomy, climatechange, smartruralareas |
Empowering the Future through innovative Smart Solutions for rural areas
- 5 smart solutions domains
- 7 Digital Smart Solutions developed during projects
- 6 Multi-Actor Pilots (MAPs) across Europe
- 10+Proposals Funded through the Open Call
- A metasearch Platform to search and access solutions developed from FUTURAL, the Open Call, and other projects
- 900+ rural stakeholders engaged in 15 workshops
- 300+ stakeholders participating 3 EU-wide Rural Innovation Forums (EU-RIF) for expertise sharing, capacity building and scale up
reframe.food being the Leader of WP5 Ecosystem Building, Open Calls and Business Modelling, is responsible for the development of the Dissemination, Exploitation and Communication Plan and the creation of an expanding, and sustainable ecosystem within and between rural communities. Moreover, reframe.food will lead the activities for the development of ≥10 new innovative and sustainable business models. As the Open Call Manager, reframe.food will lead the activities related to selecting and funding >10 projects (from consortia of 2-4 parties) to develop and apply their own smart solutions within the 5 FUTURAL domains, increasing the number of SS available to rural communities.