PIPE

Many smaller towns and settlements have a common challenge in making their communities more attractive to young people. A major issue in the PIPE project is to stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit and the community spirit among the inhabitants. In spite of mighty natural resources, there is a lack of innovation in these areas. One of the reasons can be the heavy tradition of top down planning and decision-making without real engagement among the citizens. It will be essential to define (and appreciate) the region’s or country’s own values and identity even if impulses from outside must be regarded as both useful and necessary in order to create a modern, competitive and attractive community. Central Objectives: To stimulate innovation and citizen engagement in small towns and settlements in order to create sustainable, attractive and competitive regions. It will be essential to develop cross-sectoral planning methods with a bottom up approach and to stimulate community spirit. This has to be done by better engagement among young people and by demonstrating how young people can give important contribution to local and regional development. The promotion of entrepreneurship is important and to improve the training of young entrepreneurs by the creation of a competent and transnational learning network between schools, industrial organisations and authorities. Expected outcome: The planned accumulated results will be the development of attractive, active and sustainable local communities and regions which will contribute to strengthen the polycentric settlement structures in each country and stimulate young and educated people to live, work and invest in regions outside the metropolitan areas. The heavy focus on identity and young people will stimulate widely participation in the community. The project will have an impact on the methodology used in the fields of regional planning and training of entrepreneurs. The project will contribute to the transnational and interregional cooperation in the BSR. A chain of institutions, municipalities and regions as well as individuals will be linked to the PIPE network which will continue after the project.