The main objective is to provide young people in rural environments with knowledge and tools that enable them to start own social businesses, favouring the exchange of ideas and perspectives with social enterprises and other social entrepreneurs through the ruraLAB platform. The project contributes to increasing the employability of young people by providing training materials on social entrepreneurship, marketing, economic management, generation of ideas, etc. The innovation and differentiation of this project is the ruraLAB platform, which creates opportunities for the establishment of a network of entrepreneurs and a channel to allow micro-investments in social entrepreneurship. The project also promotes the practice of ruraLAB at the local and regional levels through public bodies and youth associations, generating a connection between social entrepreneurs/investors in urban areas and young people in rural areas, to exchange ideas, visions, and social business models that could be replied in rural areas. The project implementation will have a positive impact on rural areas, making them more attractive, assuring the future of young people, and avoiding depopulation.
Since the economic crisis that began in 2008, unemployment rates in the European Union and Europe in general have increased greatly. The increase has been even greater in terms of youth unemployment between 18 and 24 years old, reaching 2019 levels close to 40% in Greece, 33.8% in Spain, or 30.3% in Italy, according to official data from Eurostat. Depopulation of rural areas may further aggravate the regions' economic decline and thus widen the gap between rich and poor regions in Europe. The European Commission has therefore identified depopulation as a priority. To combat the depopulation, the ruraLAB project focuses on equipping young people in rural areas with tools and skills in social entrepreneurship, thus preventing them from leaving urban areas, which are rich in tourist and ecological resources and have economic potential. The needs of young people in rural areas will be fulfilled by identifying their training needs for social entrepreneurship, developing training content that is effective in promoting social entrepreneurship, and supporting them with suitably developed tools and platforms to improve competences to be employed or start a business, and for collaboration with local businesses.