The modern scientific discourse on economic development increasingly emphasises the role of cultural factors. Social sciences reach for the cultural theories when they cannot explain the lack of economic growth despite favourable conditions, especially the financial and institutional ones. In...

The European Union’s cohesion policy and its Structural Funds are key delivery mechanisms to achieve the priorities of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth but there is evidence that rural areas may be receiving an inadequate share of this funding. In the period 2014 to 2020,...

All EU countries prepare new Rural Development Plan 2014-2020 for agriculture and rural areas incl. LEADER. An integral part of the planned document is analysis of rural areas and the LEADER programme. Some key questions were solved during the analysis. Such as: “How to target financial...

The multifunctional concept became one of the most important directions of EU agriculture development. The success of multifunctional agriculture is based on growing demand for non-commodity outputs. The endogenous values of rural areas that used to be explored mainly by agriculture are turning...