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Non-engagement of mid-aged and elderly residents in rural civic livability initiatives

In the context of public budget cuts and rural areas facing depopulation and aging, local governments increasingly encourage citizen engagement in addressing local livability issues. This paper examines the non-engagement of mid-aged and elderly residents (45+ years old) in civic initiatives that intend to improve the livability of their community. We focus on residents of depopulating rural areas in the North Netherlands. We compare their engagement with the behavior of residents in other, not depopulating, rural areas, and urban areas. Using logistic statistical analyses, we found that the majority of the aging residents did not engage in civic livability initiatives during the past two years, and one-third of this group had no intention to do so in the future. In all areas, the main reasons for non-engagement were that residents had other priorities, felt not capable of engaging, or felt that the responsibility for local livability belonged to the local government. Furthermore, it appeared that non-engagement was predominantly explained by the unwillingness to engage, rather than by specific motivations or lacking abilities.

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An innovative method in creating healthier environment in rural areas

Rural areas in the northern parts of the Netherlands have lots of potentials to provide a healthy environment for their residents. However, population changes (ageing, outmigration) have a negative impact on the quality of life of residents. The GO!-Method that has been developed by the National Institute of Public Health and Environment (RIVM) in The Netherlands is used in this study. It allows us to identify the opportunities and needs in a systematic way and combine local knowledge by involving residents and local authorities with results of research for a sustainable move towards a healthier environment. Our presentation will focus on the GO!-Method as a bottom up method and its use in identifying threats and changes in realising a healthy living environment.

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Development of the language proficiency of five- to seven-year-olds in rural areas

Rural children are a largely understudied population in language and literacy research, despite the fact that these children often enter school with delays in their language development. Since most rural areas suffered from so-called selective rural outmigration, many parents in rural areas are lower or middle educated. The home literacy climate, however, depends not only on the educational level of parents, but also on their lifestyle. In this study, we examined whether parental educational level and literacy use – as a feature of parental lifestyle – predict the language skills of children in Grade 1 in Northeast Netherlands. Structural equation modelling analyses revealed that the effect of parental literacy use on code-related skills is only significant in K-1 and K-2. In Grade 1, however, literacy use had a modest effect on oral language skills. The findings stress the importance of parents’ literacy use for informational purposes.

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People 1

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Jessika Weber

Professor

Projects 19

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A “room” of their own – training cultural workers for facilitating rural youths culture

Erasmus project about training cultural workers for facilitating rural youths culture

Finished

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An anthropological research into collective action in the rural areas of the Netherlands - Een antropologisch onderzoek naar collectief handelen op het platteland van Nederland

Agriculture; Macro-Micro-Macro perspective; Public goods and Public bads; Collective action; Commons; Opposite concerns; Farmers and Peasants; Anthropology

Ongoing

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BioCas

Circular BIOmass CAScade to 100% North Sea Region (NSR) economic activity and growth are mostly found in urban areas. Rural NSR regions experience population decline and negative economic growth. The BIOCAS project expects revitalizing and greening of rural areas go hand in hand. BIOCAS will develop rural areas of the NSR into smart specialized regions for integrated and local valorization of biomass. 13 Commercial running Bio-Cascade-Alliances (BCA’s) will be piloted, evaluated and actively shared in the involved regions. These proven concepts will accelerate adoption of high to low value bio-cascading technologies and businesses in rural regions. The project connects 18 regional initiatives around technologies, processes, businesses for the conversion of biomass streams. The initiatives collaborate in a thematic approach: Through engineering, value chain assessments, BCA’s building, partners tackle challenges that are shared by rural areas. I.e. unsustainable biomass use, a mineral surplus and soil degradation, deprivation of potentially valuable resources, and limited involvement of regional businesses and SMEs in existing bio-economy developments. The 18 partners are strongly embedded in regional settings, connected to many local partners. They will align stakeholders in BCA’s that would not have cooperated without BIOCAS interventions. Triple helix, science, business and governmental input will realize inclusive lasting bio cascade businesses, transforming costly waste to resources and viable business.Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme: €378,520.00, fEC % 50.00%1/07/17 → 30/06/21

Finished

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City Deal Kennismaken Leeuwarden

Als invulling voor de City Deal Kennis Maken willen de gemeente Leeuwarden en de onderwijsinstellingen (MBO, HBO en WO) in nauwe samenwerking met bedrijfsleven en maatschappelijke instellingen hun krachten bundelen voor het oplossen van relevante vraagstukken. De stad heeft gezien de rurale context in Noord-Nederland een brede definitie, onder het motto “De Stad als campus, de regio als proeftuin”. De uitgangspunten zijn: - Er wordt in eerste instantie gewerkt aan thema’s en uitgangspunten vanuit de Kennisagenda Fryslân die vanuit het Hoger Onderwijs Akkoord Fryslân, naar een innovatieve en lerende regio is opgesteld, - De uitdagingen worden aangepakt vanuit een multi-disciplinaire en multi-level (MBO, HBO en WO) aanpak. - De activiteiten vinden zoveel mogelijk plaats in zogenaamde living labs . - Het Innovatie Pact Fryslân, een samenwerkingsverband tussen het Friese hoger onderwijs, het beroepsonderwijs, het bedrijfsleven, de provincie Fryslân en de F4 gemeenten en Hoger Onderwijs Akkoord Fryslân overleg (zie figuur 2) als strategisch platform inzetten. In algemene zin de activiteiten die in dit kader uitgevoerd gaan worden zijn: 1. Het aanstellen van een kwartiermaker/ kennismakelaar die maatschappelijke vraagstukken in kaart brengt en kan koppelen aan de partners. 2. Als pilot, het inrichten van een aantal living labs op basis van een multi-disciplinaire- en multi-level aanpak. Studenten van meerdere kennisinstellingen en verschillende opleidingen zullen hieraan deelnemen om meerdere invalshoeken te krijgen om de maatschappelijke uitdagingen aan te pakken. Als hoogtepunt zal er een groot inspiratie-event georganiseerd worden (“Fryslân breekt uit”). 3. Het opstellen van een gezamenlijke living lab agenda, waarin gewerkt wordt aan de afstemming en uitvoering van de living labs. NHL Stenden Hogeschool zal als penvoerder optreden en met de gemeente Leeuwarden als consortiumpartners aan te merken. Daarnaast zullen de O3 partners (onderwijs/onderzoek/ondernemers) verenigd binnen het IPF een belangrijke rol krijgen voor afstemming, maar ook in de uitvoer.

Finished

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Closing the plastic loop in a hospitality facility

Single-Use Plastics (SUPs) are at the centre of European Union Agenda aiming at reducing the plastic soup with the EU Directive 2019/904. SUPs reduction is pivotal also in the Dutch Government Agenda for the transition to a Circular Economy by 2050. Worldwide the data on SUPs use and disposal are impressive: humans use around 1.2 million plastic bottles per minute; approximately 91% of plastic is not recycled (www.earthday.org/fact-sheet-single-use-plastics/). While centralised processes of waste collection, disposal, and recycling strive to cope with such intense use of SUPs, the opportunities and constraints of establishing a networked grid of facilities enacting processes of SUPs collection and recycling with the active involvement of local community has remained unexplored. The hospitality sector is characterised by a widespread capillary network of small hospitality firms nested in neighbourhoods and rural communities. Our research group works with small hospitality firms, different stakeholders, and other research groups to prompt the transition of the hospitality sector towards a Circular Economy embracing not only the environmental and economic dimensions but also the social dimension. Hence, this project explores the knowledge and network needed to build an innovative pilot allowing to close the plastic loop within a hospitality facility by combining a 3D printing process with social inclusiveness. This will mean generating key technical and legal knowledge as well as a network of strategic experts and stakeholders to be involved in an innovative pilot setting a 3D printing process in a hospitality facility and establishing an active involvement of the local community. Such active involvement of the local inhabitants will be explored as SUPs collectors and end-users of upcycled plastics items realised with the 3D printer, as well as through opportunities of vocational training and job opportunities for citizens distant from the job market.

Finished

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GO! Noord-Nederland (2)

The population in rural areas in the northern provinces are aging in a much higher pace than in other parts of the Netherlands. Many young and higher educated citizens move out of these provinces. Quality of life in rural villages decreases likewise and the inhabitants that stay behind are more vulnerable, with lower income and educational levels. Recent decentralization policies put a larger burden on local constituencies to guarantee the quality of the living environment but a lot of them lack sufficient knowledge and capacity to tackle this complex issue.The initiators of this application have joined their knowledge and experience to put together a consortium with the aim to support these smaller constituencies in rural areas in the three northern provinces with a new and innovative methodology: the GO! approach. This approach was developed in the neigborhoods of Utrecht municipality and will be used for the first time in rural communities with a comparable size .This approach consists of the following steps:• First to identify possibilities to create a healthier living environment by analyzing available data on pollution, spatial layout and social cohesion.• To discuss the result of this analysis with local citizens and other local stakeholders in order to link the data with local experiences• To prioritize into major themes as a result of the combination of all this available information.• To link these major themes to combinations effective measures available from RIVM and international databases.• To present these combinations to the local government, their citizens and other local stakeholders in order to let them choose for an effective approach and inplemant it together in order to create a local healthier living environment.The GO! approach will provide local citizens and professionals with the necessary tools and knowledge to work jointly and effectively to realize a healthier living environment. The project partners that jointly started the consortium will put in effort during this first year to build and formalize the consortium and to make arrangements with several constituencies in the three northers provinces to formulate their own specific knowledge agenda as a basis for concrete project proposals in the second stage to be implemented with the support of the formalized consortium.

Finished

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Integrated Nature-Inclusive Circular Farming: agroforestry as a business model

In the Netherlands, the theme of transitioning to circular food systems is high on the national agenda. The PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency has stressed that commuting to circular food chains requires a radical transformation of the food chain where (a) natural resources must be effectively used and managed (soil, water, biodiversity, minerals), (b) there must be an optimum use of food by reducing (food) waste . . ., (c) less environmental pressure, and (d) an optimum use of residue streams. The PBL also recognizes that there should be room for tailored solutions and that it is important to establish a benchmark, to be aware of impacts in the production chain and the added value of products. In the line of circular food systems, an integrated nature-inclusive circular farming approach is needed in order to develop a feasible resource-efficient and sustainable business models that brings shared value into the food chain while invigorating the rural areas including those where agricultural vacancy is occurring. Agroforestry is an example of an integrated nature-inclusive circular farming. It is a multifunctional system that diversifies and adapts the production while reducing the carbon footprint and minimizing the management efforts and input costs; where trees, crops and/or livestock open business opportunities in the food value chains as well as in the waste stream chains. To exploit the opportunities that agroforestry as an integrated resource-efficient farming system adds to the advancement towards (a) valuable circular short food chains, (b) nature-based entrepreneurship (nature-inclusive agriculture), and (c) and additionally, the re-use of abandoned agricultural spaces in the Overijssel province, this project mobilizes the private sector, provincial decision makers, financers and knowledge institutes into developing insights over the feasible implementation of agroforestry systems that can bring economic profit while enhancing and maintaining ecosystem services.

Finished

Products 909

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Non-engagement of mid-aged and elderly residents in rural civic livability initiatives

PDF

product

An innovative method in creating healthier environment in rural areas

PDF

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Development of the language proficiency of five- to seven-year-olds in rural areas

LINK