Addressing Youth Outward-Migration and an Ageing Population in Monmouthshire

In Monmouthshire, the RUSTIK project is collecting data to help Monmouthshire County Council understand issues contributing to the region’s demographic challenge of youth outward-migration and an ageing population. Improving demographic balance is a key strategic objective for the Council and is central to ensuring Monmouthshire’s communities are economically and socially sustainable.

Data collection is being carried out using the Maptionnaire survey tool, alongside community focus groups with young people and younger-working age people who live, work or study within Monmouthshire. The survey and focus groups are aimed at people aged 16-44, and explore people’s views about life and quality of life in Monmouthshire; including availability of suitable housing, employment or education/training opportunities, as well as access to services, transport and leisure.

Original data from the survey and focus groups will be combined with existing local and regional statistics to produce an experimental place-based data viewer, allowing comparison between hyper-local areas within the county. This will provide place-based insights, and quick accessibility of locally relevant quantitative and qualitative data by both the Council and aligned organisations such as housing providers and third sector organisations to inform local decision-making and interventions.

Another version of the survey is aimed at people who do not currently live in Monmouthshire but have a connection with the county. Perhaps they work or study there but live elsewhere, have lived there in the past but moved away, have family there, or may like to live there in the future. The survey seeks to understand what the barriers or the enabling factors are to these groups living in Monmouthshire or making it their future home.

To encourage a high response rate, the RUSTIK team are visiting community spaces across Monmouthshire to speak to residents and visitors about the research, as well as promoting the survey though online channels, and via the newsletters of local community and third sector organisations.

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Monmouthshire’s Approach to Demographic Challenges

Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy in Welsh) is a predominantly rural county in south-east Wales, home to 93,000 residents. Despite its picturesque landscapes and vibrant communities, the county faces significant socio-economic and demographic challenges. An ageing population and a constrained, expensive housing market make it difficult for younger residents to settle, prompting Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) to seek innovative solutions through strategic predictions and projects.

Transition Focus: Socio-Economic and Demographic Shifts

Monmouthshire is undergoing profound transitions, especially in mobility, demographics, and transport. The county’s average age is 48, and by 2036, it’s projected that 36% of the population will be over 65. This demographic shift has serious implications for economic growth, community sustainability, and public health. A focus group identified the lack of higher education, employment, and affordable housing as key factors driving young people away.

Addressing the Housing Crisis

Monmouthshire’s ageing population poses economic and social sustainability challenges. Predictions indicate that 70% of new households will be priced out of the housing market, the most expensive in Wales. Vibrant towns like Abergavenny are essential to the county’s future, but they face economic pressures such as rising energy costs and declining household spending. MCC, in collaboration with local councils, aims to reimagine these towns, potentially repurposing town center spaces for residential use to meet affordable housing needs.

Living Lab Challenge

The Monmouthshire Living Lab experiment aims to understand and address the drivers of demographic change. By exploring why younger people stay, leave, arrive, or return, the experiment will also examine related issues such as transport, housing, income inequality, and the skills needed for environmental and digital transitions.

Rationale

Youth out-migration is a significant challenge to sustainable communities. MCC’s Well-being Plan (2018) highlights that 42% of outward migration is by 15-29 year-olds, typically driven by educational and economic factors. MCC seeks to balance the needs of an ageing population while making the county viable for younger residents. Understanding the reasons behind demographic shifts will help MCC develop targeted interventions.

Policy Relevance

MCC’s key strategies, the Replacement Local Development Plan (2023) and the Community and Corporate Plan (expected 2024), focus on attracting and retaining younger people. The Living Lab’s findings will inform these plans, contributing to socially and economically sustainable communities. MCC’s involvement in various partnerships and adherence to the Well-being of Future Generations Act further underscore the importance of this initiative.

Research Questions

  • What barriers do young people (16-25) perceive to living and working in Monmouthshire?
  • For younger working-aged people (25-45), what makes Monmouthshire an (un)attractive place to live and work?
  • How can MCC increase the attractiveness and viability of the county for younger working-aged people?

Emerging Data Needs

MCC needs more granular and qualitative data to understand the reasons behind demographic shifts. The data experiment will explore these reasons in detail, focusing on younger people’s views and experiences. This approach will help MCC develop informed policies and interventions to address the county’s demographic challenges.

Monmouthshire’s Living Lab initiative aims to tackle the county’s demographic challenges by understanding the drivers behind demographic changes. By engaging with younger residents and gathering qualitative data, MCC hopes to develop targeted interventions to retain and attract younger working-age people. This initiative is crucial for ensuring a sustainable and resilient future for Monmouthshire.

The 14 RUSTIK Living Labs actors meet in Barcelona to foster knowledge exchange

 

The Pilot Region Kick-off was held in February 2023, and it was RUSTIK’s first in-person knowledge exchange, training, and networking event for partners from the 14 Pilot Regions. The event took place over two days in Barcelona and Osona in Catalonia.

During the Pilot Region Kick-off event, attendees had the opportunity to increase their understanding of the RUSTIK project and interact with the project coordinators. They also delved into how the Pilot Regions could add value to the initiative and gained indispensable knowledge for implementing RUSTIK’s approaches. It was also the first opportunity for exchanging ideas and insights with partners from 14 distinct rural regions across ten states.

During the first day of the meeting, the RUSTIK project was introduced, and the attendees learned about the key concepts that will play a key role throughout the project’s duration and began exploring how these concepts could be put into practice in their respective pilot regions. On the second day, the focus shifted from ideas to action. The attendees comprehended what to anticipate and accomplish as they started to put into action a RUSTIK Living Lab in their pilot regions.

The interactive workshops enabled the attendees to have a direct conversation with the leads in charge of each of the upcoming tasks in the Living Lab. They had the chance to ask questions and provide feedback about the topics covered, which included doing background research on their respective pilot regions led by Franco Mantino (CREA), identifying existing data and data needs led by Andreu Ulied (MCRIT), setting up and assessing their Living Lab led by Janet Dwyer (CCRI), and creating a policy panorama for their pilot region led by Petri Kahila and Juha Halme (UEF).

Our hosts in Catalonia

The hosts for the event were MCRIT and the Ersilia Foundation. On the first day, we visited Sant Miquel de Balenyà, one of RUSTIK’s 14 pilot regions. The town had been established after a train station was built in the area in 1875, and it now has 1,353 residents. The nearby Parc Natural de Montseny is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The wider region, Osona (with a population of 165,229), is renowned for its sausages and has a ratio of over six pigs per person.

RUSTIK will run 14 Living Labs to foster sustainability transitions in rural communities

RUSTIK (Rural Sustainability Transitions through Integration of Knowledge for improved policy processes) is a four-year transdisciplinary research project. The project aims to enable rural communities’ actors and policymakers to design better strategies, initiatives and policies fostering sustainability transitions of rural areas.

The project, funded by the Horizon Europe programme, envisages an analysis of current adaption requirements and the support of effective rural policy-making processes for a better understanding of the different rural functionalities and characteristics as well as the potentials and challenges of rural areas. Environment, climate-energy, socio-economic and digital will be the key transition pathways studied in the project.

Living Labs in 14 European Pilot Regions in 10 European countries will be the central element to generate new insights into rural diversity and societal transformations. RUSTIK’s Living Labs will work on the identification of new data, methods of data collection, combined with current data sources to set up relevant indicators. The project will also focus on data integration and dissemination, to make information and analysis accessible and valuable for actors and policymakers; and to improve rural impact assessment. The final goal is to enhance policy strategies and governance structures. To do so, 3 sequential phases: situational review, data experimentation, and policy learning are envisaged.

This week the academic partners of the project got together for the kick-off meeting organised in Frankfurt by the project coordinator, the Institute for Rural Development Research (IfLS).

A multidisciplinary consortium
The consortium involves 30 partner organisations. Eight universities and four research institutes are providing scientific expertise within the fields of rural development, spatial planning and reporting, policy process, climate change and sustainability; two knowledge-based SMEs contribute to this with ready-to-apply technologies and approaches; and two NGOs act as intermediaries between university resp. SMEs.

Local and regional embedded partners ensure a practice-oriented implementation of the project. This comprises partners from five local or regional public administration, two local action groups (LAGs), three business associations and three regional development agencies.

Two European umbrella organisation representing rural mountainous stakeholders and regions, Euromontana,, and the European LEADER association for rural development, ELARD, are key multipliers towards other European regions and particularly support the dissemination towards the European Union.

The consortium efforts will contribute to enhancing existing European policy tools and approaches, most of all to support the European Green Deal, the European Digital Strategy, the European Pillar of Social Rights and the EU Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas of the European Union, the EU Cohesion policy, the common agricultural policy, and, in particular, the European agricultural guarantee fund (EAGF).

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