The ERU - European Rural Universities

Up to today, eight sessions of European Rural Universities have been organised:

• in 1989, in Viuz-in-Sallaz (Savoie - France), on the subject of "The Meeting of rural people of Europe";
  
  
• in 1991, in Schull (West Cork - Ireland), on the subject of "Farmers and not Farmers, together for the Local Development";
  
  
• in 1993, in Évora (Alentejo - Portugal), on the subject of “Cultural Identity, the handspike of the Local Development";
  
  
• in 1996, in Brandjberg (Denmark), on the subject of "Rurality, an Educative Way for All: Urban and Rural actors";
  
  
• in 1998, in Val Soana (Piémonte - Italy), on the subject of "Continuous Education of Adults in Rural Areas - a Way for the Development of their Territories";
  
  
• in 2002, in Montagne St. Émilion (Aquitaine - France), on the subject of "Let Solidary Territories express them selves";
  
  
• in 2004, Oxford (Great-Britain), on the subject of "Rurality, Regional Politics and Development of the Local Communities";
  
  
• in 2006, in Szolnok - Mezötúr (Hungria), on the subject of "East/West Dialogue for the Future of the European Rural World";
  
  
• in 2008, in Sucha Beskidzka (Poland), on the subject of "The Development of the European Rural World. Education, Culture and Tradition like a source of Inovation and Modernity".

Rural European University

A call for the future

Since 1989, rural people from different European regions have been exchanging their knowledge and their know-how. Those collaborations have created cross-border and transnational networks which contribute to the european building.

1 - Issues

The ERU is now thinking about the future of the rural world and is trying to prepare it by:

• providing rural actors with some methods concerning laws and the ways of making the rural world dynamic;
  
• helping the local actors to assert themselves and to be actively involved in actions for rural development at a local and european level;
  
• integrating the voluntary sociocultural actors in the economic process;
  
• creating new national and regional development projects involving both urban and rural areas;
  
• enabling the search af a new citizenship.
  

2 - The scientific field: culture and the rural world

As the founder of the European Rural University's movement anounced: "the rural world is going through a real rebirth".

Some people remain pessimistic about the rural world's future, however it would be interesting to do a certain number of things:

• to look at the way farmers and non-farmers fight together for a european rural development;
  
• to analyse the actions led by the european rural population in terms of rural development;
  
• to propose sustaible development alternatives.
  

With this new dynamic development sttrategy, the ERU is aiming at:

• gathering together voluntary actors of the european rural world;
  
• involving those actors in local development programs with the suport of those who have the same activity in the other member states of the European Union;
  
• favouring the rebirth of a european culture, which would be good for everybody, through the help of people who are most often excluded from big issues and decicions.
  

What must now become a priority is to live in a balanced society, in which the rural and the urban world are complementary.

A mixture of the ancestral rural culture, the "land" culture and the culture conveyed by the media will probably create the next thousand years culture.

3 - A programme for next years

Founded in 1989, the ERU is aiming at three main goals: to set up research-action and a training-development programmes and also to consolidate the network established by the european colunteers.
In other words:

• to look for the meaning of the actions led by local actors on european rural areas (research-action programme);
  
• to try to find new self training methods for those key actors of local development (training-development programme);
  
• to stimulate actors who work on similar activities and at similar levels (consolidation of the network).
  

Research-action programme

• study of the projects launched by key actors;
  
• study of the concepts which have been developped since the beginning of the ERU: that is to say the overlap of conceptual and practical knowledge (creation of an encyclopedia about the know-how);
  
• to look for new development alternatives which promote individuals in the area they live in.
  

Training-development programme

• to enable all project bearers to meet in order to compare all their experiences (at technical, economic, legal, social and cultural level), to overcome the approaches by branch to contribute to the territorie's development;
  
• to take into account what was done at the international and crossborder sessions to make a useful guideline of a methodology for local actors in order for them to be real partners in the rural world's development process;
  
• to form a pluralistic international team whose members would help local actors of diferent european countries in their training.
  

Consolidation of the network

• to organize the dissemination of information between the ERU's partners thanks to New Technologies of Communication and Information (NTIC);
  
• to reinforce the international teams which exist or have begun to assert themselves since the beginning of the ERU, and wich are working continuously on international subsjects or countries;
  
• to prepare a new meeting of the different representatives of the European Union's member states in order to evaluate and promote new axes of work for the ERU.