On 30th September 2022, a Latvian partner seminar on the results of the PoliRural project was held. 88 participants applied for the seminar, who received basic information about the PoliRural project and the website of the project for obtaining additional information. All registered participants are also sent access information for both the seminar presentations and the video recording (available here). As part of the seminar, basic information about the PoliRural project was provided to 26 territory planning specialists, 22 researchers, 17 regional development specialists, 11 rural development specialists, as well as representatives of education, consulting services, welfare industry, state and local government administration, information technology and business. 39 participants took part in the seminar, getting more information about the digital tools created and used in the PoliRural project and about the experience, benefits and challenges of Latvian partners within the project.
The aim of the seminar was to share international experience with the local Latvian community, as well as to reflect the local and practical application of project results. As the Latvian partners pointed out, this international project was a new and valuable experience, which was carried out in a systematic process, combining the experience gained in the past in order to create a methodology and tools for the development of rural areas that can be used in the future. As the project partners admit, one of the biggest challenges has been the availability of data and the efforts of all participating partner countries to create a common forecasting model/tool, as each member state had its own peculiarities in data availability.
The seminar provided information on the developed tools – Semantic Explorer (Semex), A Text Mining Tool for Smart Research, Digital Innovation Hub (DIH), System dynamic modeling for rural development (SDM), as well as Action Oriented Foresight for Rural Development and Mission oriented regional development.
In the panel discussion of Latvian partners, the significance of the developed methodological materials, practical tools (Semex, SDM, DIH) that can be applied to the regional situation and used in the preparation stages of planning, as well as in creating scientific research projects, was noted.
