CAAIVE – Regional Hubs for Rural Resilience, Community Engagement and Innovation

Smart Nest is seeking to join a Horizon Europe consortium as a partner contributing to rural community engagement, participatory research, local pilot implementation, capacity building, knowledge transfer and dissemination.

Through the CAAIVE network, we propose to use four developing regional Centres of Vocational Excellence in Smart Agriculture as local hubs for rural community resilience, bringing together educational institutions, farmers, local businesses, researchers, technology providers and other community stakeholders.

These hubs could serve as regional platforms for assessing vulnerabilities, co-designing resilience strategies, testing community-based solutions and strengthening local capacities to anticipate, prepare for and recover from environmental, economic and social shocks.

Our potential contributions include:

• Community engagement and co-creation: Mobilising rural stakeholders, including farmers, young people, women, local businesses and vulnerable groups, through workshops, consultations, participatory research and co-design activities.

• Regional pilot implementation: Supporting the establishment of local resilience pilot activities through CAAIVE hubs, facilitating cooperation between researchers, rural communities and local authorities.

• Resilience assessment: Supporting data collection, stakeholder surveys, community needs assessments and the testing of indicators measuring vulnerabilities, preparedness and recovery capacities.

• Capacity building: Developing training programmes, digital learning resources and practical workshops on rural resilience, climate adaptation, crisis preparedness and digital skills.

• Knowledge transfer and replication: Facilitating peer learning and exchanges between rural communities in different European countries, sharing tested approaches and supporting their wider adoption.

• Dissemination and exploitation: Translating research findings into accessible guidance, educational resources and practical recommendations for rural communities and policymakers.

Our expertise and access to facilities

Smart Nest is involved in CAAIVE – Centres of Agricultural AI Vocational Excellence to Empower the Agriculture Sector, an Erasmus+ project developing four regional hubs in Smart Agriculture.

The CAAIVE network brings together agricultural vocational education institutions, universities, farmers, businesses and technology providers. While primarily focused on agricultural innovation, these institutions are closely connected to rural economies and communities, making them promising environments for broader rural resilience activities.

We also maintain close connections with four other ongoing agricultural CoVE projects, providing additional opportunities for European networking, stakeholder mobilisation and knowledge exchange.

Our expertise includes:

• Digital transformation, AI adoption and digital competence development.

• Design and implementation of vocational and community-oriented training programmes.

• Participatory stakeholder engagement, surveys and competence assessments.

• Development of interactive digital learning environments, educational resources and knowledge-sharing platforms.

• Quality assurance, evaluation, dissemination and exploitation of European project results.

Through CAAIVE partner institutions, we can facilitate access to regional educational infrastructure, training environments, stakeholder networks and potential community demonstration sites, subject to agreement with the participating institutions.

Added value for the COMMUNITIES-01 consortium

Our key added value is the opportunity to use CAAIVE's four regional hubs as platforms for rural resilience research, community engagement, experimentation and knowledge transfer.

Rather than creating entirely new structures, a consortium could build on these developing regional networks to engage rural stakeholders, investigate community vulnerabilities, pilot preparedness and adaptation measures, and exchange knowledge across different European contexts.

Smart Nest can contribute to bridging the gap between research, local communities and practical implementation, ensuring that resilience strategies are accessible, inclusive and relevant to rural populations.

We are particularly interested in consortia seeking a partner to lead or contribute to work packages on rural community engagement, participatory research, regional pilots, capacity building, knowledge transfer, dissemination and exploitation.