Horizon Europe Inspire Project: Supporting inclusion, well-being, and growth in rural areas through multi-stakeholder Smart Villages labs to improve governance frameworks.

The INSPIRE project supports the sustainable and inclusive development of European rural areas by promoting social well-being and the inclusion of rural dwellers and vulnerable groups.

Specifically, the project contributes to promoting the concept of social inclusion in rural areas in a multidimensional manner and supports rural citizens' access to high-quality social services through a series of awareness-raising, capacity-building, and pilot deployment activities focusing on social entrepreneurship in seven different pilot territories (e.g., coastal, rural, peri-urban, and mountainous).

To achieve its objectives, the project provides a novel territorial typology of rural areas, establishes and operationalizes "smart village labs," and improves governance frameworks and informed policymaking through e-democracy and user innovation techniques, ultimately delivering a dedicated rural social inclusion policy panel.