Rural communities need sustainability to face unprecedented challenges
Rural communities are facing unprecedented social and economic challenges which need to be addressed to prevent them becoming dormitory communities without schools or local services and marginal enterprise activity, according to an expert in rural entrepreneurship.
Professor Gerard McElwee, professor of Entrepreneurship at Nottingham Business School, is highlighting the serious issues facing rural communities ahead of the Ninth Rural Entrepreneurship Conference, to be hosted at Nottingham Business School, part of Nottingham Trent University, on 23-24 June 2011.
Professor McElwee, who is also the founding editor of The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and has extensively researched the areas of rural enterprise and farm entrepreneurship, said: Loss of services, rural transport, rural poverty, access to affordable housing and enterprise support are just a few issues facing rural communities. Given the scale and nature of these changes and the inherent difficulties and capacity constraints in addressing them, it is vital that we put investment and support in place to develop sustainable rural communities.
Practitioners, policy makers and academics will be travelling from as far afield as Mexico, Iran, Portugal and Pakistan, to share research findings, analysis and good practice relating to rural enterprise and rural sustainability.
The conference is being run in conjunction with the University of West of Scotland and will include expert speakers such as Denis Byrne, who was appointed to the board of the Irish National Forestry Company (Coillte) in January 2010, following a distinguished 35-year public service career in the Ministries of Industry and Commerce, Foreign Affairs and Agriculture of Ireland.
Dr Stuart Burgess, chairman of the Commission for Rural Communities, which promotes awareness of rural needs amongst decision makers across and beyond government, will also attending and speaking at the conference, as will Professor Nigel Curry, director of the Countryside and Community Research Institute, a joint institute of the universities of Gloucestershire and the West of England, and David Smallbone, Professor of Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Associate Director of the Small Business Research Centre at Kingston University.
Professor McElwee, who will also be presenting at the event, added: This conference will focus on how we make rural communities sustainable, and that includes the ways in which the role of legal, financial, social and behavioural aspects of businesses and communities impact on making rural economies enterprising. The discussions and networking which will happen at this event could prove key to the future of these communities.
The Ninth Rural Entrepreneurship Conference will take place in the Newton building at Nottingham Trent University on 23-24th June. For further information, visit www.ntu.ac.uk/nbs/news_events/rural_entrepreneurship