RUSTIK at the Reallaborkonferenz 2026 in Cologne

RUSTIK will be present at the Reallaborkonferenz 2026, taking place from 16 to 17 September 2026 at TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences, Campus Leverkusen, under the theme “Zurück in die Zukunft? Reallabore in Zeiten disruptiven Wandels” (“Back to the future? Living labs in times of disruptive change”).

Two members of the RUSTIK consortium, Daria Ernst (Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics, Rural and Mountain Research, BAB, Austria) and Svea Thietje (Institute for Rural Development Research, IfLS, Germany — RUSTIK’s coordinating institution), will both attend the conference and will present their work back-to-back in the same parallel session: “Regionen, Stadt-Land-Beziehungen, territoriale Transformation” (Regions, urban-rural relations, territorial transformation), scheduled on Wednesday, 16 September, from 14:30 to 16:00.

Daria Ernst (BAB) will present “Konzeption und Umsetzung von Living Labs in ländlichen Regionen” (Design and implementation of living labs in rural areas), co-authored with Ingrid Machold, drawing on BAB’s experience coordinating RUSTIK’s Austrian Living Lab in the Nockregion-Oberkärnten.

Svea Thietje (IfLS) will present “Living Labs im Umgang mit sozialen Herausforderungen in ländlichen Räumen” (Living labs addressing social challenges in rural areas), co-authored with Sarah Peter and Simone Sterly, building on IfLS’s cross-country work analysing social inclusion challenges across several RUSTIK Living Labs.

The two presentations offer complementary perspectives from within the same project — one on the design and setup of living labs, the other on their social impact — providing session attendees with a joined-up view of RUSTIK’s approach to rural transformation.

Both talks build directly on RUSTIK’s mission to strengthen rural resilience and innovation through participatory living-lab approaches, and their joint appearance in the same session offers a strong opportunity to showcase complementary perspectives from the project — one centred on the design and setup of living labs, the other on their social impact — to a highly engaged audience of researchers and practitioners in transdisciplinary and real-world lab research.

The Reallaborkonferenz 2026 gathers a broad community working on real-world labs (“Reallabore”) across Germany and beyond, with a programme spanning keynotes, parallel workshops, doctoral and student tracks, and thematic sessions on topics such as governance, evaluation, transfer, and territorial transformation. RUSTIK’s participation reinforces the project’s ongoing dialogue with the wider living-lab and real-world-lab research community on shared challenges around rural transformation.

RUSTIK at REROOTED Seminar on Demographic Change in Rural Territories

On 8 July 2026, the EU‑funded REROOTED project will host the online seminar “Assessing impacts of demographic trends in rural territories. Research methods in Europe and Japan” (8:30–11:30 CEST / 15:30–18:30 JPT) on MS Teams.

Demographic change in rural areas is a growing concern worldwide, with Japan offering long‑term evidence of demographic decline while many European regions are only beginning to experience and measure similar trends.

The seminar will explore how demographic trends in rural territories are defined and assessed, which social, economic and environmental dimensions are considered, and how different data and methods can be used to identify and classify rural clusters.

 

RUSTIK contribution: functional rural areas and resilience

Francesco Mantino, WP1 leader in the RUSTIK project (“Conceptualising functional rural areas, transition, and resilience of rural areas”), has been invited to present RUSTIK’s work in Round 2 of the seminar.

His talk, “Exploring Diversity in the Rural Continuum: Insights from the RUSTIK Project”, will showcase the project’s methodological framework for analysing diverse functional rural areas, with a focus on transitions and resilience.

In particular, the presentation will highlight:

  • How RUSTIK defines and operationalises functional rural areas in relation to wider territorial systems.
  • The variables, indicators and information needs identified to analyse key transition themes affecting rural territories.
  • Approaches to assessing the resilience capacity of different rural areas and their responses to ongoing demographic and socio‑economic transitions.

By connecting these elements, the session will underline how RUSTIK’s conceptual and empirical work can support better‑informed policies and strategies for rural regions facing demographic change.

 

Dialogue with Japanese case studies and EU projects

The seminar programme is structured in two rounds.

The first round presents Japanese case studies, including research on landscape maintainability under demographic shrinkage, co‑creative planning in Obuse Town (Nagano) and rural inmigration and gentrification in Niseko driven by ski tourism. These contributions provide rich examples of how long‑term demographic decline is measured and managed, and offer valuable insights for European researchers.

The second round brings together evidence from major EU projects: GRANULAR on demographic expansion in rapid‑growth rural areas, RUSTIK on the rural continuum and functional rural areas, and the EU Rural Observatory on demographic trends in rural regions. This combination of perspectives will foster a comparative dialogue on data, methods and indicators across different territorial and institutional contexts.

 

Organisation and invitation

The seminar is organised within REROOTED’s WP1 “Understanding driving forces and impacts of demographic trends in rural EU”, and specifically Task 1.1 “Narratives and indicators of demographic change”. It is coordinated by Claudia Cassatella and Enrico Gottero (Politecnico di Torino), together with Chika Takatori (University of Tokyo), and will close with a final discussion moderated by Christian Fertner (University of Copenhagen).

JOIN THE EVENT HERE