Rural Conversation No. 3: 'Building vibrant and sustainable communities in rural Ireland'

4 April, 10:30-13:00 in the Seasons, Tourism & Leisure Building, WIT Cork Road Campus

Registration with tea/coffee from 10:00 
Networking lunch at 13:00

The purpose of this rural conversation is to consider what policy measures are required to support vibrant, resilient and sustainable communities in rural Ireland into the future, particularly in the context of emerging social, economic and environmental challenges.

One of the key objectives of the Government’s Project Ireland 2040 strategy is to achieve strengthened rural economies and communities. Rural areas contain some of our most vibrant and culturally distinctive communities and the Government recognises that the full participation of rural communities is central to our national economic and social development.  Building and supporting vibrant and sustainable communities is essential if we are to strengthen Ireland’s rural fabric and enable rural areas to realise their full potential.

This workshop—the final of three thematic Rural Conversations organised by the Royal Irish Academy—will provide an opportunity for stakeholders to make an input to the formulation of the Government’s next phase of rural development policy.

Stakeholders will be seated at a number of roundtables and will discuss and formulate recommendations on two focused questions dealing with sustainable communities.  There will be a feedback session during which stakeholders' suggestions will be fed back to the room.

Question one—What are the characteristics of vibrant and sustainable rural communities in Ireland?

Question two—What policy actions need to be taken to ensure that rural communities are resilient, vibrant and inclusive, and better equipped for the challenges of the future?

It is important that there is a broad cross-section of representatives from the stakeholder community providing the feedback of recommendations. Therefore, we may need to review registrations to ensure broad representation of stakeholders. Should we find that there is an imbalance in the stakeholders who have registered we may need to adjust for that.

The roundtable feedback by the Chairs at each roundtable (not the full discussions at the roundtables) will be audio recorded. In the rapporteur's report we may include names of attendees and their affiliations.There may also be a photographer at this event. Please read the Transparency and Consent Information document in relation to all of those items.

The first event in this series took place on 8 November 2018 in NUIG and it dealt with 'Delivering economic development in rural Ireland' and the second  in the series 'Enhancing social cohesion among communities in rural Ireland' took place in DkIT on 28 February 2019.

Listen to the conversations

This complete series is supported by the Department of Rural and Community Development, and this conversation is hosted by WIT.