The DESIRA (Digitisation: Economic and Social Impacts on Rural Areas) project aims to improve the capacity of society and political bodies to respond to the challenges that digitisation generates in rural areas, agriculture and forestry, and to provide a comprehensive assessment of both opportunities and threats.
To achieve its goal, DESIRA wants to build a knowledge and methodological base that makes it easier to assess the past, current and future socio-economic impacts of ICT-related innovation.
It seeks to embed Responsible Research and Innovation into researchers’, developers’ and users’ practices and policies, and looks to offer mechanisms and tools that will support decision-making on challenges and opportunities related to digitisation.
DESIRA enrols agriculture, forestry and rural stakeholders in co-developing scenarios and policies in ‘Living Labs’ established in 20 European Regions, and a Rural Digitization Forum gathering 250 stakeholders from all Europe.
This Horizon 2020 project coordinated by the University of Pisa, Italy, brings together 25 organisations, including AEIDL, from across sectors and disciplines including research institutes, NGOs, and SMEs.