On March 30, 2020, the Horizon2020 SIMRA project (Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas) is launching a 3 weeks Massive Online Open Course on Social Innovation in Rural Areas. This course will drive you across the possible applications of social innovation in rural areas and let you discover best practices for managing social innovation projects.
Who is this course for?
The course is designed for anyone interested in innovation in rural development. This may include decision-makers, public, private and third sector development agents, evaluators, facilitators, technical advisors, researchers or students involved in social innovation projects in rural areas.
What will you learn?
The course is organised in 6 modules that will take you a structured framework to understand, categorise, evaluate and promote social innovations in rural contexts. It includes theory, practical tools, and content from real case examples from different areas in Europe and in non-European Mediterranean countries.
- Introduction to Social Innovation
- Characteristics of social innovation in rural areas
- Social innovation in rural areas in practice
- Good practices and adaptive management in social innovation projects
- Methods to evaluate social innovation in rural areas
- Policy needs and policies for supporting social innovation in rural areas
Why shall you join this course?
- Gain a critical understanding of the concept of social innovation and its influence on social, economic and environmental outcomes in rural areas.
- Recognise the diverse roles of communities and civil society in the development of social innovations.
- Be aware of the multiple applications of rural social innovation to support societal well-being.
- Learn about a range of tools and methods to better support social innovation
- Acquire competences for identifying, categorising and analysing cases of social innovation in Europe and non-European Mediterranean countries.
- Be able to identify factors that affect the development of social innovation in rural areas.
- Appreciate the challenges of evaluating social innovation.
- Explore the policy context for social innovation and learn how policy can stimulate or constrain its development
What else to do?
- Join the FutureLearn platform
- Freely access to the MOOC (It can be followed for free, although those who want to get a certificate can upgrade by paying a €39 fee)
The course has been developed by the University of Padova, Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza with the support of the Wageningen Economic Research Institute, European Forest Institute, James Hutton Institute, Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands, ÖAR Regionalberatung GmbH, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna.
