Project Partners

Euracademy Association is a non-profit European membership organization established in 2004, with headquarters in Athens. Euracademy’s vision is to promote capacity building in rural areas through lifelong learning and transfer of good practice and cooperation between different actors of rural development in the EU. The Association has members from over 20 European countries including, universities, research institutions, academics, policymakers, social partners, local development managers, and others. The Association has conducted multiple activities, including regular face-to-face learning in 17 annual summer academies, e-learning courses, publication of over 16 books, networking, research, project work, and has organized numerous conferences. Euracademy has also designed the curriculum of a Master’s degree course for “Animators of Rural Development” to be delivered online, jointly by seven universities-members of Euracademy. The Euracademy network carries the experience of 18 years of developing and implementing capacity building and lifelong learning initiatives for sustainable rural development across Europe, taking an integrated approach to rural development, i.e. considering all the different sides of development and the different routes that can be used to achieve a sustainable future.

Themes that Euracademy has dealt with in its annual summer academies include Rural Tourism, Information Society, Diversification of Rural Economies, Social Capital, Education, and Lifelong Learning, Culture, Environment, Sustainable Agriculture, Social Innovation, Local Governance, Landscape, Creative Industries, Volunteering, Integration of Immigrants and Refugees in Rural Communities, Cooperative Development and Social Entreprises in Rural Areas, Innovation and Smart Solutions for Sustainable Rural Development. Euracademy has led or participated as a partner in a large number (over 13) EU-funded projects and has conducted research on a variety of themes, such as: the use of IT for lifelong learning in rural areas, the impact of Lifelong Learning on the inclusion of vulnerable groups (mostly immigrants) in rural areas, the sustainable exploitation of rural cultural heritage for local development, the familiarisation of the general public with European policies on the environment and landscape.