"<< Background >>The outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly affected all aspects of life across Europe. In addition to threatening our health, the pandemic is also posing serious challenges to our socio-economic systems. Especially in rural areas farmers, entrepreneurs and communities in general have been particularly and negatively affected with respect to their employment and production prospects. According to the latest Eurostat figures (2018) rural areas account for more than 341 m ha, which represent 83% of the total EU area, and 30.6% of the EU’s population lives there. Rural areas are the fabric of our society and the heartbeat of our economy. They are a core part of our identity and our economic potential. We need to cherish and preserve them and invest in their future. Moreover, Covid-19 pandemic has created new challenges to overcome and has accelerated the need for rural areas to adapt to new market needs and digitalization. As regard the latter aspect digital skills are considered essential for global competitiveness, boosting jobs and growth, while internet can also play a vital role in terms of providing high- quality education and training. In 2019, the overall level of digital skills in the EU was lowest among adults who were living in rural areas (48% had basic or above basic digital skills), rising to 55% for adults living in towns and suburbs, and peaking at 62% for adults living in cities. Transitions require locally adapted solutions that both improve the economic and social conditions of farming, enable generational renewal and contribute to the development, resilience and attractiveness of rural areas. Research and innovation is critically important to develop and upscale knowledge, practices, technological and social innovations that will enable transitions towards sustainable farming systems and the development of rural communities.The project is conceived as a tool to promote and reboot entrepreneurship in the agri-food sector in rural areas, through the digital training of people and exchange of good practices, facilitating the learning of business management contents specifically adapted to the agribusiness, craft and the production of local goods. Europe is boosting the agri-food sector, both at local and regional level, with the aim of strengthening it as much as possible and advancing competitiveness and sustainability. EU Member States need to build their rural development programmes following and respecting all the needs of the industry. The importance of the rural environment for all European countries is already sufficient motivation for the development of training actions that seek their territorial integration, combating the gender and socioeconomic imbalance between rural and urban areas, by improving incomes through economic diversification and by promoting sustainable development and job creation.So, the RURAL JUMP-START project addresses the following needs:1. The urgency to give a concrete boost to rural and sustainable tourism and gastronomic offer focusing especially on the production of local goods and craft fostering their competitiveness on the territory with the aim of strengthening the sector as much as possible;2. The necessity of building a balanced territorial development of rural economies and communities including the creation and maintenance of employment;3. The exingency to create a synergy between local producers, entrepreneurs and artisans in order to promote and raise awareness of the delights of the territory from a gastronomic and local artifacts point of view;4. The necessity of feeding the revaluation and the preservation of the territory and local communities by training in a personalized way not only adults but also young people and immigrants;5. To improve local entrepreneurship and professional development by emphasizing the importance of acquiring innovative competences providing participants with digital tools and e-skills to make locals competitive.<< Objectives >>As the COVID-19 pandemia is spreading around the globe, the introduction of social distancing, national lockdowns and tier systems at national and local level since March 2020 has hindered almost all economic activity across European countries, especially in rural areas and countryside where the economy was already at risk.So, by implementing the project and his activities, participating partners and the coordinator aim to achieve and accomplish the following objectives:1. To promote the territory by expanding the dissemination of its local products (both handmade goods and gastronomic products) to make them better know at both local and regional level increasing productivity in rural areas. The main aim is to stimulate the dissemination of economic activities to a wider level and to to reach a higher employment rate, which ultimately results in balanced regional development;2. To foster sustainable tourism by both improving the Km0 market and energy efficiency of businesses and reducing the development of waste attracting in this way more and more responsible and aware tourists to the country;3. To create and strengthen a network of cooperation between local entrepreneurs, owners of hotels, museums, local producers, craftsmen whose works can be complementary (website, marketing, handicrafts, food processing, etc.) offering them the opportunity to get to know more deeply both at the local level and by tourists. The main objective is that everyone actively helps each other by creating a strong, lively and lasting synergy;4. To build a social environment in which adults, young people and immigrants can feel integrated in order to avoid migration of villagers to larger cities. The main aim is to give to these people specific training so that they end up living in the country;5. To promote entrepreneurship in rural areas through integrated digital training and by developing innovative pedagogical tools. The aim is to improve cross-cutting business management skills and the exchange of good entrepreneurship practices. It is necessary to provide participants who have opted or are interested in investing in the rural environment with the necessary e-skills, management skills, financing, distribution and communication thus contributing to the sustainable development of rural area.Moreover, relevant stakeholders and policy makers at the most appropriate level will be identified and involved in project activities such as round-tables that will promote the course content. Therefore, the objectives of the project will be achieved by following specific priorities:-Common values, civic engagement and participation: the project will support active citizenship and ethics in lifelong learning; it will foster the development of social and intercultural competences and critical thinking;- Improving the availability of high quality learning opportunities for adults: this priority provides support for the creation and development of flexible learning offers adapted to the learning needs of adults by developing digital training opportunities;-Creating upskilling pathways, improving accessibility and increasing take-up of adult education: this priority aims at promoting adult education opportunities, particularly for adults with a low level of skills, knowledge and competences. Creation of new upskilling pathways should allow adult learners to enhance their key competences and to progress towards higher qualifications.<< Implementation >>The RURAL JUMP-START project is going to implement the following specific activities: - 3 Project results; - 5 Transnational Meetings; - Online meetings each month; - 1 LTTA (C1) in Turkey in September 2022; - 6 Multiplier events in September/October 2023 in each participating country; PROJECT RESULTS ( they will be better explained in the next section) TRANSNATIONAL MEETINGS and ONLINE MEETINGS: 5 transnational meetings will form an integral part of the strategic partnership. Each partner meeting will address key project deliverables, project management and monitoring activity. This will include budget management, progress and timesheet reporting, workplan and risk register review, project results progress update etc. Transnational meetings within RURAL JUMP-START project will take place within key periods of the project’s lifetime: before the development and/or after the finalization of the project’s key outputs and results, allowing partners both to reflect on the achieved results as well to effectively plan and organize the project’s upcoming tasks and activities. The schedule of the transnational project meetings is described herewith:1. Kick-off meeting will be held in Spain by ADRI JILOCA GALLOCANTA and GEINNOVA in Month 1 (M1); 2. Second transnational meeting will be held in Poland by IDEA4LIFE in Month 6 (M6); 3. Third transnational meeting will be held in Italy by EXEO LAB in month 12 (M12); 4. Forth transnational meeting will be held in Portugal by UPYOUTH in month 18 (M18);5. Fifth transnational meeting will be held in Cyprus by DIONE in month 24 (M24). The face-to-face meetings will be complemented by monthly steering committee meetings (online) to ensure the project outcomes. LEARNING, TEACHING, TRAINING ACTIVITIES: RURAL JUMP-START Transnational training in digital competences (C1) will be organized in Turkey in September 2022. The training event will last for 4 days and comprise a total of 20 hours of face-to-face learning for adult participants of the project on how to improve digital and IT competences to both ensure their fully participation in the PR3 implementation ( the cooperative online platform) and to improve their skills so that they can subsequently apply them also in rural contexts where they operate in order to be more competitive and recognisable in the local labour market, how much regional and national promoting in this way their social and economic empowerment and inclusion. The result of the training will be the establishing of a dynamic ""hub"" of like-minded adult who are highly interested in high quality learning opportunities and who desire to develop strong relationships and prolong their collaboration into future projects and/or initiatives with the aim of improving rural areas from an entrepreneurship perspective.MULTIPLIER EVENTS 6 RURAL JUMP-START campaigns will be organized and implemented in each partner countries in the form of a multiplier event in September/October 2023 (each multiplier event will be implemented in different days). The main aim of these events will be to present and disseminate the project’s achieved results and attract participants for the further implementation of the training programme and contents developed . In addition, the campaign in each country aims to make known the cooperative online platform and his forum section to fuel the importance of creating a strong network and collaboration between participants, associated partners and stakeholders more so in the post-COVID era.<< Results >>RURAL JUMP-START project is expected to have significant intangible results on the direct target group: (a) creation of new possibilities for economic development by increasing entrepreneurship and training opportunities; (b) enhanced opportunities for social inclusion of participants;(c) the development of highly innovative and transferable training content that encourages entrepreneurship in the rural agri-food sector, thereby improving the sustainability of Europe’s rural environment; (d) skills increasing of participants in their working and learning backgrounds;(e) enhanced opportunities for economic inclusion and employability of participants; (f) enhanced employability, productivity and active participation in the local economy; (g) improving the interest in the field of local products and craft in rural areas; (g) creation of new possibilities for economic development by increasing training opportunities.Moreover, within RURAL JUMP-START project, partners will develop the following Project Results: PR1: RURAL JUMP-START local action report. It will be a report on good entrepreneurship practices in the European agri-food sector. It will define the training objectives to be developed later and it will integrate local and regional stakeholder groups. The RURAL JUMP-START local action report is considered an important milestone for the start of the project as it will guide the development and final achievement of the educational and supporting objectives.PR2: RURAL JUMP-START training programme. It is a specific formative guide focused on digital and entrepreneurial skills that the project wants to give participants in order to foster local entrepreneurship and disseminate local products in a more widely way taking into account all the information and data collected thanks to PR1. Contents will be adapted to the agribusiness, craft and the production of local goods and tailored to the needs of participants in each country with a common guideline.PR3: Cooperative online platform. It is a cooperative online platform including an online chat forum and gamification make available to participants in order to assess, develop and improve their employability and IT skills and competences; expand their network, keep in touch and share ideas and material with other people from both their area and all over Europe; create a sense of community and connectivity. Beyond this, the project aims to obtain concrete and immediate outcomes (that will be developed and explained in detail in the project description part) such as:1. RURAL JUMP-START GUIDE 2. RURAL JUMP-START PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT 3. MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE PLAN 4. QUALITY ASSURANCE REPORT 5. SURVEY FORMS 6. DISSEMINATION PLAN and SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY 7. RURAL JUMP-START PLATFORM 8. RURAL JUMP-START BRANDING PLAN 9. PROJECT’S BOOKLET 10. IMPACT RELEVANT REPORT 11. SUSTAINABILITY PLAN 12. MULTIPLIER EVENTS"