Launch event: Rural Inspiration Award Winners 2022

The annual Rural Inspiration Awards (RIA) ceremony took place during the launch of the EU CAP Network, with winners being unveiled for the 2022 edition. The theme was 'The Future is Youth'. The RIA jury received 111 entries from 24 Member States for four thematic categories: Green Futures, Digital Futures, Resilient Futures and Socially Inclusive & Innovative Futures.

In the Green Futures category, the winning project was Woola (Estonia), which replaces plastic bubble wrap with packaging from waste wool products. Ireland’s Broadband 4 Our Community won the Digital Futures award for its bottom-up success in bringing broadband to some 750 homes and businesses in a remote region. A pedigree certification scheme for Greece’s Red Cow breed won the jury’s Resilient Futures prize for helping breeders conserve agrarian biodiversity and maintain jobs to tackle depopulation pressures. In the Socially Inclusive & Innovative Futures category, the winning project was the Centre for social inclusion in Romania, which offers young people a space to interact and participate in various activities and events. A fifth project – The most pessimistic town in Finland - won the Popular Award from on online votes for its innovative use of humorous territorial marketing.