This year’s conference title was Innovation Systems and Rural Development and papers were presented under the following topics:
• Local economy and new businesses in rural areas
• Education and learning systems in rural areas
• Nature and landscape as an asset to development and innovation in rural areas
The background for these topics is that innovation is crucial to our nations’ development and economy. Usually research with regard to innovation im- plicitly is based on economies of agglomeration, and favour city areas. There may be a need of questioning these logics and examining rural areas as another basis for innovation systems. This might be a new trajectory to follow in rural development issues, looking for alternatives to the agricultural era and its vacuum in the rural areas.
The three chosen topics are each important to rural development in general, but they can also be analyzed in connection with the concept of innovation systems. Each topic provides opportunities for shaping a new framework which could become a part of, or a target for, the setting up of an innovation system. In the following you’ll find a number of presentations that are aiming to do so in different ways and from different points of view.
Our network is both scientifically and practically oriented, and we like to meet in a serious but informal atmosphere and to be open to new ideas and presentations. Publications from each conference reflect this diversity and respect the author’s contributions at varying levels. As with this edition, too, most of the presentations have been selected and slightly revised with regard to the lan- guage in the editorial process. The contributions have put the debate on rural development issues on a new level and also call upon further theoretical research, maybe in the network or in rural research in general. It is no secret, that there is a heavy need of new rural development theories everywhere in the research world.

Un exemplaire est disponible pour consultation au Centre de Ressources du RwDR