The Smart Rural 21 Project
About the project
The Smart Rural project is a two and a half-year project supported by the European Commission (DG AGRI) with the overall aim to promote and inspire villages to develop and implement smart village approaches and strategies across Europe, and to draw conclusions and support future policy interventions on smart villages.
- Dec 2019 - Smart Rural 21 project started.
- Jan 2020 - Strategy development started with five preselected villages.
- Jan – Jun 2020 - Application to become one of the additional 16 villages.
- Jun 2020 - 16 additional villages selected & started strategy developement.
- 27 Oct 2020 - 1st Smart Village Academy
- Dec 2020 - All selected villages complete their smart strategies
- Feb 2021 - Smart action planning starts in all 21 villages
- 23-24 Feb 2021 - 2nd Smart Village Academy
- Jul 2021 - Selection of 2 villages to complete strategic actions in full
- 14 Sept 2021 - 1st Regional Workshop in Tomaszyn (online)
- 5 Nov 2021 - 2nd Regional Workshop held in Stanz
- Dec 2021 – Feb 2022 - Policy Workshops
- 27 Jan 2022 - 3rd Regional Workshop held in Ostana (online)
- 18 Mar 2022 - 4th Regional Workshop held in Torup
- Jun 2022 - Strategic action support completed in supported villages
- Sept 2022 - Final Conference
- Nov 2022 - Smart Rural 21 project ends
Project News
Ostana (IT) cross-visit

The Smart Rural 21 project and its Come Along! villages visited Ostana on 16-17 May to learn about its rural mobility strategy and residency programme. The 15 visitors met the ’living books’ of Ostana, having locals telling them their own life stories… Finally, visitors walked through the hamlets of the village to learn about the architectural and housing rebirth of Ostana.
Ansó (ES) cross-visit

Seven members of the Smart Rural 21 project and its Come Along! villages visited Ansó on 12-13 May 2022 for a project cross-visit which featured a workshop on rural challenges and presentations of community initiatives. Visitors heard from the local school children about their recent project: an outdoor classroom focused on environment and nature. Ansó residents also recounted how the community welcomed a Ukrainian family, helped with housing, clothing, and a job opportunity, as well as integrated the children in school.
Mukařov (CZ) cross-visit

The Smart Rural 21 project and its selected and Come Along! villages visited Mukařov on 5-6 May 2022 where they saw a series of community projects, including the recent integration of Ukrainian families. Mukařov presented its smart garbage collection system, ways in which old buildings are renovated according to the most recent technologies, and other relevant projects to make the village even tidier and more liveable.
Cross-visits across Europe

Thanks to the improved pandemic situation and the support of the hosting Smart Rural 21 villages, cross-visits and other one-to-one village visits are organised during May and June 2022.
Cross-visits allow village representatives (especially from the selected and Come Along! Smart Rural 21 villages) to get inspired, exchange, and learn from each other's smart approaches.
Language should not be a barrier anymore

Thanks to a built-in translator engine, from now you can read the Smart Rural 21 website contents in any of the official EU languages. You can select the preferred language by clicking at the language selection dropdown menu in the top-right corner of the page.
Cross-visit in Torup

Joint to the 4th Regional Workshop a cross-visit of villages was organised. The participants got inspired by community-led projects: a railway station reconstructed as a book shop & offices, a concert hall installed in a former diary plant, an art gallery that welcomes exhibitions of artists from across the World, a local community-owned mill, local boarding school for entrepreneurship and design, new GP service provided by local village doctor and more…
The 3rd Regional Workshop focused on Smart Mobility

The workshop entitled ‘Better Connected Rural Areas – Improving Rural Mobility’ was originally planned to be held face-to-face in the Alpine village of Ostana, in Italy. However, due to the rising number of Covid cases the event was finally organised online. A cross-visit for villages to visit Ostana is planned in May 2022.
Smart Villages country information updated

The Smart Rural 21 project is collecting and updating information on Smart Villages policy, projects, organisations, and other resources in each Member State. Thanks to the new search engine users can identify resources by country, policy, organisation, type of action or free words. Find out more through the What’s happening in my country pages.
Penela (Portugal) and Stanz im Mürztal (Austria) are selected to receive further support towards the full implementation of their strategies

The two villages receive further (larger scale) specialist expert support to help realising specific and concrete smart actions planned in their smart village strategies, related to energy community and local token system in Stanz, and digital and social innovations linked to local food production, tourism and environmental actions in Penela.
Get inspired by new smart solutions

Smart solutions can provide inspiration for local people and communities to start innovative local, community-led (smart village) actions. Check out the continuously growing database of smart solutions that can now be searched by keywords related to people, economy, environment, living, connectivity & mobility and governance.
Discover the other Smart Rural 21 villages!
News of the village of the month
Roadmap toolbox
What’s happening in my country?