On 20–21 May 2026, we closed the RurALL project – an Interreg Danube Region cooperation exploring how vacant and deteriorating buildings can become starting points for wider processes of rural revitalisation. The project kicked off 2 and a half years ago in the same Slovenian Municipality of Beltinci, our exemplary lead partner. This closing conference was a 2-day gathering of municipalities, development agencies, research institutions, civil society organisations, experts and students from 11 Danube-region countries (with all 5 MOBA countries among them!), and this is the work we did:
In the two days, we presented the main results of the project and zoomed out to look at how the different strands of the work done through RurALL connect: from understanding rural challenges and mapping local assets, through community engagement and the development of sustainable business models, to governance, financing and cooperation models. The walls of the conference room provided space for exhibiting the concept designs for vacant and deteriorating buildings produced collaboratively as a result of this process.
The first day was dedicated to the project methodology and experiences from the 11 pilot territories. Discussions connected the RurALL approach to the New European Bauhaus, an initiative whose principles of inclusion, sustainability and (aesthetic) quality were an inspiration in the inception stage of the project and a common thread throughout. We contributed with an overview of the vacancy mapping analysis and policy recommendations stemming from it, as well as a presentation on participatory architecture.
The second day turned to the conditions needed to make these approaches last. Discussions on the Multi-Stakeholder Governance Model and financing mechanisms underlined that revitalising rural areas requires not only good ideas, community ownership and different forms of knowledge and resources, but also cooperation between different levels of governance and mechanisms that support action over the longer term.
The central message that rural depopulation is a complex, cross-cutting challenge that cannot be addressed by any single actor or level of governance was also underlined in the central panel discussion “From Policy to Practice: Addressing Rural Depopulation”. Coordinating and deepening efforts across local, regional, national, and European levels is a genuine challenge, but local good practices are out there and macro-regional rural development coordination is already being pursued under the EU Strategy for the Danube Region.
After two and a half years of collaboration, 11 municipalities in the Danube region better understand what is needed across the vertical policy chain and have an in-depth snapshot and 10-year projection of their depopulation trends. They can look at and expand the map of empty and underused buildings in their territories, use and upgrade practical financial and business-model tools we’ve co-developed, have a list of dedicated and now familiar experts to turn to, and have done the extensive groundwork needed to turn specific buildings into community-benefiting, forward-looking, place-based interventions in the built environment that gradually unlock other potentials and routes for revitalisation.
See the whole library of project outputs here.
