Call for applications for 9 PhD positions in the MCSA doctoral network “EPHEMERAL"

Host institution: University of Aveiro

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Objectives: The main objective is to contribute to the sub research question of how diverse rural entrepreneurs engage with their rural localities over time, by studying the specific empirical phenomenon of tourism and heritage based entrepreneurship. The project aims at identifying entrepreneurship combining tradition and innovation practices regarding tourism activities and products, examining the meaning of local identities, places and heritages and how these are integrated and capitalized in the entrepreneurial strategies. The context for the analysis will link with our associates Rede de Aldeias Históricas e Portugal (Network of Historical Villages of Portugal) a long and wellestablished network within the country, including 12 villages from 11 municipalities whose historical heritage has been explored for tourismrelated purposes. The analysis will focus on those entrepreneurs (in several fields – e.g. food and wine, handicraft, nature-based activities) and in different life-cycle stages, that have sought to combine traditional heritage and resources with innovative practices, products and ways of doing within the NHVP context. 

Expected Results: A synthesis of the different representations of heritage among rural communities, entrepreneurs and other organisations and networks. A detailed analysis of entrepreneurs’ motivations relating to local, cultural and natural heritage elements. 

Planned secondment(s): Ivo Pilar Research Institute (incl. Lika-Senj County Development Agency); UNESCO, London and Northumberland, UK); 

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): University of Aveiro

Host institution: University of Aveiro

Location: Aveiro, Portugal

Objectives: The main aim is to contribute to the sub research question of how rural places change over time in interaction with rural entrepreneurial agency by studying the specific empirical phenomenon of how rural produced and/or prepared food products may (re)connect and (re)communicate places identities between rural and urban contexts. Food can convey the culture, traditions, history, identities, natural features, agricultural practices, ways of doing and a particular vision of the world and, therefore, place together different agents and actors in a specific universe of flavours and scents bridging past and future generations and symbolically and materially connecting places and people. Alternative food networks (AFNs) and short supply chains (SSCs) have gained terrain in the last decades following the growing interest of consumers in other-than-industrial foodstuffs and the increasing interest of producers in contributing to healthier and sustainable food offers.  

Expected Results: Better understanding of the representations of rural food products and territories in promoting local identities and cultures, and particularly how these are communicated beyond the rural. The results will allow further theorization about the role and significance of networks and synergies among diverse stakeholders within the food supply chain and the rural development agenda more widely.

Planned secondment(s): James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen; University of Groningen

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): Aveiro University

Host institution: University of Southern Denmark

Location: Esbjerg/Kolding

Objectives: The main objective is to contribute to the sub research question of how structural changes at the societal level change the emergence of opportunities and resources in rural places through the specific empirical phenomenon of left behind places as a new political narrative and category. Increasing regional inequalities related to the ongoing effects of urbanization, globalization, financial crisis, pandemics, and climate mitigation have led to experiences of being left behind in many rural communities. This project explores the narrative of left behind regions as a source of entrepreneurial mobilization that holds the potential to rebalance political priorities and spatial distribution of opportunities and resources and increasing spatial justice. The project thus seeks to identify new forms of entrepreneurial agency leveraging local and extra-local resources around notions of left behindness, geographical discontent and spatial justice. 

Expected Results: Findings seek to showcase entrepreneurship in rural places that are characterised as less-favoured, lagging or “left behind”. This is key to seeing entrepreneurship as a route to overturning negative images of places. The research will then address the gap between aspirations and expectations of policymakers and support needed and offered to entrepreneurs in left-behind places. The study will conceptualise the strength and dynamics of forms of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial affordances in these places. By identifying effective business models to connect “left behind” places and better capitalise on their internal resources, the results can highlight how rural economies can play key roles in efforts to “level-up” regional economic inequalities

Planned secondment(s): University of Groningen; Northumbria University

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): University of Southern Denmark

Host institution: Northumbria University

Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Objectives: The main objective is to contribute to the sub research question of how diverse rural entrepreneurs engage with their rural localities over time, by studying the specific empirical phenomenon of women entrepreneurs who launch and manage their businesses in rural areas. Specifically, to explore how they construct and understand place and identity, with a focus on intersectional aspects such as ethnicity, migration experience, family status, and age. By examining multiple identities across the life-cycle of women entrepreneurs in rural areas, the study will examine in greater depth how place can act as an enabler or constraint to these women entrepreneurs. The project also seeks to further develop understanding of the complex notion of entrepreneurial embeddedness in the rural setting by investigating how women entrepreneurs' perspectives on place change over the course of their working lives and how they symbolise the communities they inhabit through their business endeavours.

Expected Results: Findings aim to illustrate strategies to enhance embeddedness in different rural contexts and assess the way that place attachment and identity shape their networks and evolving embeddedness. Results will categorise different values derived from being embedded in rural entrepreneurial ecosystems as well as challenges or limitations that might arise especially for women entrepreneurs, allowing theoretical contributions to the literature on entrepreneurial embedding. This can inform new business support policies that recognise the heterogeneity of rural entrepreneurs and the different ways in which they perceive and attach (or not) to dominant place identities. 

Planned secondment(s): University of Groningen; University of Aveiro

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): Northumbria University

Host institution: University of Valencia

Location: Valencia, Spain

Objectives: The main objective is to contribute to the sub research question of how diverse rural entrepreneurs engage with their rural
localities over time, by studying the specific empirical phenomenon of rural social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurs fosters innovation
in rural Europe. This PhD pushes the discourse forward by focusing on people who describe their ventures as social enterprises and
examining how their activities impact on their localities over the lifetime of the venture.

There is still more research needed to understand how social entrepreneurs and social funders act as change agents to break unfavourable
routines and promote new development trajectories through social innovation. Therefore, the key objective of this PhD is to improve
knowledge of how social entrepreneurs mobilize a variety of resources across different levels of their network hierarchy, across sectoral
borders and over time, in order to develop their organisations, i.e. the social enterprises and social investors, to address the needs of rural
communities.

Expected Results: Case study findings will identify different types of resources that drive social innovation along with the processes and networks that are most effective at mobilising these resources. This will help to address the gap between aspirations and expectations of policymakers, ambitions of social investors and the support needed and offered to social enterprises. Through dialogue between practitioners and researchers in the field of social enterprise and rural development, the study will provide evidence of how place and place identities shape the goals and the marketisation of social enterprises. Case studies and surveys will help understand how social enterprises support and engage vulnerable groups in their work with the aim of developing new place-based models for social enterprises, and policy-makers, to extend their scope and continue to adapt to changing rural populations and need.

Planned secondment(s): University of Groningen; Northumbria University

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): University of Valencia

Host Institution: University of Groningen

Objectives: The main aim is to contribute to the sub research question of how rural places change over time in interaction with rural entrepreneurial agency by studying the impact of place on entrepreneurs' evolving networks and cognition through a strong focus on social innovation initiatives in depopulating rural areas, which are a major concern in many European regions. The study thus seeks to capture the potential particularities of strategic cognitive factors and entrepreneurs’ social networks in social innovation initiatives, and their interaction with rural depopulating places as well as their ability to connect to other, more resource-rich places.

Expected Results: The project will identify factors modulating the visions, attitudes and decisions of entrepreneurial actors, and how they affect/are affected by changing rural places. This will make it possible to capture factors linked to the most successful processes, the necessary skills for that, and recommendations to promote long-term sustainable initiatives in depopulating rural areas. The results will present “profiles” of entrepreneurs according to their social and professional experiences and their life trajectories across rural and urban places. The results will provide new knowledge about the personal networks of key actors (local and external) in entrepreneurship initiatives and highlight the tangible and intangible resources that nurture rural entrepreneurship over the life-cycle. Findings will also explore how entrepreneurs and their networks evolve as rural places change, providing an original contribution in understanding how actors’ motivations and networks relate to their attachment to rural places. This will make it possible to design recommendations for socially innovative initiatives among rural community organisations and policy-makers under the banner of place-based development, particularly focusing on depopulating rural areas.

Planned secondment(s): University of Valencia, University of Southern Denmark

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): University of Groningen

Host Institution: University of Southern Denmark

Location: Denmark

Objectives: The main objective is to contribute to the sub research question of how structural changes at the societal level change the emergence of opportunities and resources in rural places through the study of sustainable energy development in Europe. The sustainable transition of Europe’s energy infrastructures involves large investments in new infrastructure such as land consuming wind power, solar or power to X facilities. Much of this will take place in rural areas, severely impacting landscapes, infrastructures and amenities – and potentially creating new opportunities and challenges for rural entrepreneurs. The project comprises three major objectives: (1) Identify and explain the emergence of locally integrated models of sustainable energy investments in rural areas in Denmark; (2) Identify and explain the social mechanisms and networks that enables and hinder the emergence and stabilisation of this models . (3) Co-create, with local and outside stakeholders, templates that support the dissemination and scaling of models for of sustainable energy investments in rural areas in Europe.

Expected Results: Results seek to identify opportunities for local entrepreneurship that establishes collaborative, trans-regional, and integrated models of value creation and appropriation in rural energy developments. This requires the research to develop models for locally integrated sustainable energy investments in rural areas of Europe that ensure that the sustainability transition does not exacerbate the regional inequalities. Through the secondments, the role of community energy schemes will also be assessed as part of an integrated approach to sustainable rural energy that might be scalable across Europe. As well as identifying opportunities and challenges for rural entrepreneurship linked to sustainable energy transitions, the findings will analyse questions of power and the networks between entrepreneurs and other actors that are required to facilitate effective models of sustainable rural economies in the context of transitions to ‘net-zero’.

Planned secondment(s): University of Valencia; Community Action Northumberland & Northumbria University.

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): University of Southern Denmark

Host Instutition: University of Groningen

Location: Groningen, Holland

Objectives: The main objective is to contribute to the sub research question of how structural changes at the societal level change the emergence of opportunities and resources in rural places through the study of how new modes of work are shaping entrepreneurial opportunities in rural Island settings. This project engages with the reciprocal relationship between the new modes of work opened through digitalization and the specific territoriality of island economies. The spatial and socio-economic context and the remoteness of islands shape entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs can shape their island identities too. In the short run, restricted access to resources limits the scope for entrepreneurial efforts. Since remoteness is a structural dimension in island economies, in the long run, it may actually bolster creativity and entrepreneurial behaviour. This may well extend beyond the ‘simple’ start-up and management of business to include the evolution of community level entrepreneurship. Even though the reciprocal relationship between entrepreneurship and ‘islandness’ is apparent at any given time, its mechanisms and manifestation only become apparent when regarding it in a dynamic sense over the life–course.

Expected Results: Conceptually, the project will reveal how different representations of work, rurality, remoteness are created, communicated and experienced through entrepreneurship. Case studies of island entrepreneurs will help to identify distinctive aspects of their business models as well as barriers faced by (aspiring) island entrepreneurs and businesses – e.g. in obtaining sources for development. The results will also elucidate the nature of barriers and opportunities and the ways in which they change as a result of both external forces and the actions of island entrepreneurs. These are the starting point for targeted, place-based, policies to support island economies as part of wider rural development initiatives embedded in the structural changes carried through digitalization.

Planned secondment(s): Ivo Pilar Institute; University of Southern Denmark

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): University of Groningen

Host institution: University of Valencia

Location: Valencia, Spain

Objectives: The main aim is to contribute to the sub research question of how rural places change over time in interaction with rural entrepreneurial agency by studying the specific empirical phenomenon of rural development policy. Policies and policymakers play a crucial role in supporting existing rural entrepreneurs and creating favourable conditions for new entrepreneurial initiatives to emerge and grow in rural areas. However, further research is needed to identify the most effective policy interventions for fostering sustainable, innovative, and resilient businesses in these contexts. This PhD project aims to deepen understanding of how policymakers perceive, support, and shape rural entrepreneurship across diverse rural settings. 

Expected Results: The project is expected to produce insights into effective policy interventions for rural entrepreneurship, identifying specific support mechanisms that enhance resilience and innovation in rural businesses across different life-cycle stages. It will map out how policy can influence skills, organisational networks, and place factors involved in rural entrepreneurship, integrating a life-cycle approach in varied rural settings. 

Planned secondment(s): Insights North East and Northumbria University; University of Southern Denmark

Enrolment in Doctoral degree(s): University of Valencia