Methodology proceeded in three steps:

1. Desk research to get a general overview of the rural area in EU and neighborhood countries (inside and outside the consortium area) and of the main issues to address.
2. Data collection from partners through an online questionnaire and database of 256 projects/initiatives, giving a much more micro-picture of the rural areas panorama, and highlights specificities and main challenges among EU countries, which should be addressed in LIVERUR further steps.
3. Conceptualization of six existing business models types and seven innovative trends, through analysis of the macro and micro-picture. Finally, the 256 cases of the database were split into these categories, and around 30 cases from the database were used to exemplify the conceptualization.

The objective was to describe the EU rural areas in all its diversity and heterogeneity. This is why the micro-data was gathered directly from the partners. Each partner was indeed asked to give cases that were typical and representative of what can be found on their territory.

This way, the cases collected should be representative from several points of view:

• Geographical: the database contains cases from 23 EU and 10 non-EU countries
• Project/initiative size
• Innovation level: the database contains traditional cases as well as more innovative ones
• Type of activities

The questions address typical business model canvas criteria (product/services, customer, resources, key partners, channels, revenue stream, and cost structure) and “subjective” impact evaluation on social, economic, environmental criteria specified with LIVERUR expert partners.

Key issues may be pointed out from the data global picture:

• The legal status is mainly carried by individual companies and the global geographical influence relies on regional areas. For this reason, a stronger cooperation between companies from different cities/countries would help to develop more advanced business models, which can have a national or even international impact.
• Maturity of the project: most of the projects/initiatives are going through their growth and maturity phase. As in this stage, the projects become visible and profitable, it is the time to get focused on taking advantage of this growth and try to readjust every aspect of the project which can be improved and of course taking into account the feedback from the market. Another big percentage of the projects/initiatives is in the maturity phase. In this case, the project is in its full potential and scope, but still some contributions can be added. The focus needs to be on extending this situation and invest in new developments. Only the 22% of the projects are in their innovation phase. Therefore, they need to be supported and prioritized.
• Types of products and services: 54% of the initiatives are based on products (mainly food & beverages). However, only 34% are based on services and only the 12% on other products. There is an opportunity to develop new business models focused on services in order to improve, for instance, accessibility or communications in rural areas.
• Another striking point is the very few projects in LiveRUR database related to water management and waste recycling, since both topics are gaining importance nowadays. This could represent a competitive advantage concerning the development of new business models in rural areas.
• Workforce: In most of the projects the workforce is under 100 people. Projects/initiatives should be promoted to make people know about them and therefore get a bigger cooperation. Marketing strategies should be involved within the projects and a more effective use of Social Media may represent a smart way to get expanded and specially to reach other targets besides the ones which are currently participating, like farmers or wholesalers.
• Positive impact on social, environmental, economic criteria: The lack of data to evaluate some environmental (water, energy consumption), economic (gross domestic product) and social (inclusion, norms for gender) criteria mean that a focused should be made to fill this gap through concrete and measuring tool and stakeholders participation.

Business Model Analysis

Six existing business model types representative of rural areas are fully described in chapter 4.

50% of projects/initiatives analysed by LIVERUR are positioned on the two existing mainstream value chain of rural areas: Conventional farming, and Food & Drink industries. The main challenges for these small companies are to be more profitable, to increase competitiveness, to get more power in the value chain and to answer food safety, healthiness, and environmental increasing requirements. The proximity of small farms with customers and other stakeholders of the local ecosystem is a strength to create value through brand quality and diversification of activities (tourism, energy production, processing of farm products…).

If the majority of the LIVERUR database projects concern “mainstream” value chain in growth or maturity phase, new trends are also yet emerging. We identified seven innovative trends, answering to rural issues, and opening the way to new business models. Quality of food and more globally or rural products is the dominant trend, driven by brand value, regulations and expectations of customers. Developing excellence including product and service design, understanding user value trend are key issues to be competitive. Services, both as social and business support, represent 38% of LIVERUR projects innovative trends, showing the great dynamic of rural areas in development of services.

Nevertheless, it seems that big challenges still have to be faced to move towards new business models that are both socially inclusive and economically viable. Organisation that give empowerment to rural communities, integrated and new flexible approach for coordination of services across different sectors (e.g. digital platform), alternative models to deliver services ( e health, e mobility..), are kind of emerging innovative ways.

With only 4% of projects concerning local energy production and use, a focus should be done on how to make it a growing concern in the further steps. Specifically water consumption, which is the major environmental issue faced in the food and drink value chain, is very poorly represented in the database.

Conclusion

This report gives two main outputs that should be now appropriated by partners and leaders of LIVERUR further steps, in order to move from this existing view to innovative living lab concepts. That needs to take in consideration specificities, strengths and weaknesses of the rural areas on the 4 LIVERUR pillars, and to target their “best living lab” model.

These two main outputs are:

1. Creation of an extensive analysis of the existing business models in rural territories in order to foster collection and capitalization of existing knowledge: with its 256 projects/initiatives, the database provides a wealth of information and network for partners to exchange practical experiences, obstacles to face and success stories.
2. Development of a comprehensive approach to rural business models analysis which will identify relevant benchmarking criteria and suggest innovative comparison strategies.

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The complete list of references is cited in the full study.