Entrepreneurship is an important component of place reinvention and economic diversification strategies designed to stabilise or revert population trends in rural areas experiencing population decline. A twofold objective is pursued: promoting individual entrepreneurial initiatives, and maximising their chances of having a lasting positive effect on local economic prosperity.
Multiple parallel challenges often need to be addressed, e.g. limited local resources, a lack of entrepreneurial traditions, small labour markets and long distances to higher education and professional training institutions. At the same time, these areas often have unique assets such as natural resources, high quality living environments and tightly knit local communities.