On 24-26 September 2019, Velké Bílovice (Check Republic) hosted the XVIIth European Rural Development Network (ERDN) Conference. At ERDN conference Lithuania was represented by scientists from Lithuanian institute of agrarian economics (LAEI) dr. Živilė Gedminaitė-Raudonė and Dr. Rita Vilkė.
During the conference, over fifty participants from various European regions discussed the new challenges and opportunities for rural development after 2021: Is it enough to balance the economic, ecological and social challenges? How should we act to preserve the regions for future generations?
Representatives of LAEI joined the conference discussions by reading two papers. One of them was dedicated to the analysis of the balance of interests between Lithuanian government institutions and agribusiness in the field of biogas as smart specialization development, based on the results obtained during the implementation of the LARS - Learning Among Regions on Smart Specialization - INTERREG Baltic Sea Program project.
The second presentation raised the scientific debate on the necessity of fulfilling the current concept of sustainable development using the principles of the Quintuple Helix, which has just started to be addressed in scientific literature in 2019. The assumptions made in this presentation are based on the results from another AgriRenaissance - Innovation-driven agri-food sectors for a European industrial renaissance - project, which is being implemented under the INTERREG Europe program.
LAEI researchers moderated one of the conference sections due to the ERDN request. During the event, opportunities for scientific cooperation were discussed and new contacts were established with scientists from Kosovo, Czech Republic, Austria and Romania.
More details of the ERDN network and 17th Network Conference 2019 might be found on the Internet: http://erdn.eu/; http://erdn.eu/conference/17erdn2019/; https://www.facebook.com/ERDN.EU/
More information about LARS project is available on the project website:
http://projects.interreg-baltic.eu/projects/lars-93.html
More information about AgriRenaissance project is available on the project website:https://www.interregeurope.eu/agrirenaissance/