La Universidad Católica de Murcia (UCAM) expands its international collaboration by participating in the new European project Next Generation Sustainable Business Models and Monitoring for Rural Resilience and Innovation (NEXRUR), an initiative that seeks to boost innovation and sustainability in rural communities in Europe and China. This research, which will last four years, involves 30 partners (21 European and 9 Chinese), has a total budget of almost 6 million euros and is co-funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe programme.

The main objective of NEXRUR is to investigate innovation dynamics and change strategies in rural areas through international cooperation between the European Union and China, enabling farmers and their communities to develop, select and scale up new or improved sustainable business models, and to assess their economic, social and environmental impact on rural resilience.

UCAM, under the direction of researcher Nuria Vela de Oro, will contribute to the project with the development of a digital monitoring system that will allow measuring the social, environmental and economic sustainability of rural farms. To this end, the research team will collect data from rural communities in Europe and China with the aim of improving the tool and creating an application capable of comparing different business models, identifying which are more efficient and sustainable for each type of territory.

‘We are very excited about our participation in NEXRUR, a key international cooperation project for the future of rural areas. Together with 29 European and Chinese partners, we are firmly committed to finding business solutions that are truly sustainable in the long term for rural communities. Our contribution, through a multidisciplinary team of researchers, will focus on the development of a pioneering digital tool,’ says Nuria Vela de Oro, principal investigator of the project on behalf of UCAM. 

NEXRUR is the successor of the completed European project H2020 LIVERUR led by UCAM's International Project Office, which laid the foundations for the creation of circular business models in rural areas across Europe, modernising small and medium-sized agricultural and rural enterprises in 13 countries.

NEXRUR Project: 

Coordinator: Leibniz-Institut für Agrartechnik und Bioökonomie e.V. (ATB, Germany).

European partners: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (UBER, Germany), Stichting Wageningen Research (WR, Netherlands), University of Burgos (UBU, Spain), Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production gGmbH (CSCP, Germany), RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB (RISE, Sweden), Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet (SLU, Sweden), Greenovate! Europe (G!E, Belgium), Bundesanstalt für Agrarwirtschaft und Bergbauernfragen (BAB, Austria), Fundación Centro Europeo de Empresas e Innovación de Murcia (CEEIM, Spain), Cluster Viooikonomias kai Perivallontos Dytikis Makedonias (CLUBE, Greece), San Antonio University Foundation (UCAM, Spain), Association Européenne Leader pour le Développement Rural (ELARD, Belgium), GreenFlex (France), Magyar Akvakultúra Technológiai és Innovációs Platform Egyesület (HUNATiP, Hungary), Zabala Innovation Consulting S.A. (Spain), Coöperatie Stadslandbouw Oosterwold U.A. (Netherlands), Verein für Landschaftspflege Potsdamer Kulturlandschaft e.V. (LPVPo, Germany), Landschaftspflegeverband Prignitz Ruppiner Land e.V. (LPVPR, Germany), Asociación de Productores de Ganado Criado a Pasto (DeYerba, Spain) (DeYerba, Spain).

Chinese partners: Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Ningbo University; Zhejiang Gongshang University; Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (RCEES); Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS); Zhejiang University; Yangzhou University; Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences; Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 

Call topic: HORIZON-CL6-2024-COMMUNITIES-02-2-two-stage - New sustainable business and production models for farmers and rural communities (RIA.)