This exploratory study focuses on the role of the university in supporting sustainable development in rural areas, focusing on small wine producers, particularly those located in remote and disadvantaged areas. Disadvantaged areas have distinctive features. Firstly, they are fragile areas from a sociodemographic point of view because of population ageing. Secondly, they are unstable from an environmental (physical, eco-systemic) point of view, as a consequence of insufficient maintenance of their seminatural capital. University–business cooperation with companies located in those areas thus needs to be designed by considering the specific characteristic of the place. Therefore, this exploratory study sought to understand how the university can work with small wineries and support them and their rural area to face inequalities and low growth, and foster social innovation. We present a case study based on field research in Italy. The results—based on the analysis of 26 semistructured interviews with small wine producers—are discussed by exploring the potential form of cooperation between rural stakeholders and universities, beyond the concept of knowledge transfer. Conclusions highlight the need for the university to act as a facilitator of dialogue at a territorial level, as a first step toward to formulation of shared sustainable goals.
The aim of this study is to analyze the role of food and gastronomy in expanding the tourism sector in the territory of Marche region (Italy), hit by major earthquakes in 2016 and 2017. One of the first actions taken by individuals, municipalities, institutions, and nonprofit associations
was to set up e-commerce initiatives to sell local food and wine products in order to support farms and businesses affected by the earthquake. Five e-commerce companies were interviewed to understand the level of involvement of local actors and the importance of food and gastronomy in the
recovery phase. They indicated a need for more initiatives similar to these to promote sustainable development and proposed that the tourism sector could be drawn into a collaboration with food and wine producers and sellers, so as to offer consumers and tourists a more complete and typical
experience of the Marche region. Finally, they felt that the efforts of local communities must be supported by cooperation from the regional and national government.
The aim of this paper is to provide a review of the main roles HEIs can play in rural areas. A longitudinal case study about the civic engagement of the University of Macerata - UNIMC (Italy) is presented, by assessing its attempt to fulfil its third and fourth mission through the application of the Quadruple Helix and 3 Model and by implementing the Civic University’s dimensions. Furthermore, these aspects have been investigated through the university-business collaboration and the community-academic-collaboration frameworks. More specifically, the paper focussed on UNIMC’s commitment at a local level analysing its involvement in local and international projects for place and agri-food product marketing, place branding and rural development, promoted by a research team within the Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism.
Phenomena associated with globalization, the spread of the knowledge economy and the challenges of sustainable development are all contributing to redefining the role of the university. In addition to the traditional first and second missions of education and research, universities have been taking on a third mission to bring socio-economic benefits to the local and national economy through technology transfer. The first part of this study briefly outlines the theoretical framework of the third mission and the emerging function of co-creation of initiatives to support social sustainability. Next, the study describes the approach adopted by the University of Macerata (UniMC), a university focused on Social Sciences and Humanities (SSHs). Since 2013, UniMC has undertaken specific actions to boost entrepreneurship through a humanistic approach towards local development. This paper describes six initiatives out of the many that UniMC has established: the Office for the Valorisation of Research - ILO and Placement; CreaHUB; LUCI, Laboratory for Humanism, Creativity and Innovation; IMpresa INaula; Mangia Locale; and #SMARTMARCA.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.