ItalianoSPACE-NEST: Sustainable Path Advancing Community Empowerment - New European Bauhaus for Social Economy and Transformative Living
SPACE-NEST is a project aimed at revitalizing abandoned or underutilized rural spaces by transforming them into hubs for social enterprises focused on the green economy. The project emphasizes renewable energy, circular economy, sustainable crafts, and green architecture, inspired by the principles of the New European Bauhaus and the European Green Deal.
Context
European rural areas, which cover 80% of the EU’s territory and house 30% of its population, face structural challenges such as demographic decline, insufficient connectivity, and a lack of attractive job opportunities. The abandonment of buildings and rural spaces exacerbates these issues, despite their great potential for regenerating local communities.
SPACE-NEST addresses these needs by offering innovative solutions to transform such spaces into resources that promote sustainability, innovation, and social inclusion, aligning with the EU’s green and digital transitions. By leveraging the principles of the New European Bauhaus, SPACE-NEST seeks to demonstrate how rural areas can become vibrant ecosystems of sustainable and inclusive economic activity.
Goals
SPACE-NEST aims to recover and enhance abandoned rural spaces or transform underutilized ones by giving them new importance and meaning. The project facilitates the creation and empowerment of socially oriented enterprises tied to green economic activities that address the challenges and needs of rural communities. This aligns with the EU’s ambition to boost the development of social economy SMEs in rural areas. The project fosters innovative, sustainable, and integrated ecosystems, driving resilient territorial development under the New European Bauhaus and European Green Deal frameworks.
Specific goals include:
- Mapping and repurposing spaces for sustainable economic activities;
- Establishing a social economy ecosystem to address local challenges through scalable solutions;
- Enabling stakeholders to engage in exchange missions and develop action plans;
- Promoting the replication of the SPACE-NEST model across Europe.
Activities
Key activities include :
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Conducting territorial analyses to assess local needs and map recoverable spaces;
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Organizing three transnational social economy missions involving 72 stakeholders;
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Developing three territorial action plans inspired by New European Bauhaus principles;
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Dissemination efforts involve hosting events such as Sharing Days, producing a best practices report, and organizing an online event with over 100 participants to ensure widespread awareness of project outcomes.
Together, these activities aim to create a sustainable model for rural transformation and social innovation.
Partners
The SPACE-NEST consortium comprises six complementary partners, from Ilaty, Spain and Slovenia:
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Three local administrations: Diputación de Málaga, Provincia di Bergamo and Občina Izola.
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One sector representative organization for the green economy: Lombardy Energy Cleantech Cluster - LE2C
Project results and documents
As part of its analysis and dissemination activities, SPACE-NEST has produced two key documents that bring together results, methodologies, and concrete examples of sustainable rural regeneration, in line with the principles of the New European Bauhaus.
"Preliminary overview of existing projects"
The document presents the projects analyzed by SPACE-NEST and illustrates how abandoned or underutilized rural spaces can be regenerated through sustainable and inclusive approaches. Thanks to territorial mapping and participatory processes carried out in areas such as Bergamo, Málaga, and Primorska, opportunities have been identified for the development of social enterprises linked to the green economy, particularly in the sectors of renewable energy, the circular economy, and sustainable architecture.
Click here to view the complete document
"Rural renewal: a guide to sustainable transformation"
The document brings together 41 examples of good practices in rural regeneration in Europe, showing how abandoned spaces can be transformed into cultural, community, and productive hubs. The experiences presented demonstrate the potential of the social economy to generate social value, local employment, and territorial resilience, offering replicable models to support the green and social transition of rural areas.
Click here to view the complete document
SPACE-NEST n. 101169704 Funded by the Single Market Programme (SMP) - Social Economy Missions for Community Resilience (SMP-COSME-2023-RESILIENCE)
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.