University of Galway to lead European project on enhancing women’s role in agriculture
President of University of Galway Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh and FLIARA project lead Associate Professor Maura Farrell. Picture: Aengus McMahon.
University of Galway is to lead a new research project running across 10 countries in Europe focusing on enhancing the role of women in agriculture, and rural life and affairs.
The Horizon Europe project, FLIARA - Female-Led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas - proposes an innovative approach to improve understanding, awareness, and recognition of women’s role in a more sustainable rural future, as well as developing more effective policy and governance frameworks that can support and enhance the capacity of women who live and work in these areas to contribute to it.
The project is being led at University of Galway by Associate Professor Maura Farrell.
Outlining the vision for the project, Ms Farrell said that to overcome Europe’s rural challenges and embrace potential opportunities, "there is a need for all individuals and communities to participate in rural innovation".
“Traditionally, rural women’s employment opportunities and contribution to innovation has been overshadowed, and often suppressed, by a patriarchal ethos," Ms Farrell added.
Funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme, FLIARA is a three-year project, which aims to combine futures and case study methods, alongside network building and policy benchmarking, while being underpinned by a co-created conceptual and assessment framework.
It will actively involve female farmers and rural entrepreneurs, and will identify visions for sustainable farm and rural futures and the sustainability innovations needed to realise these visions.
Researchers will also investigate women-led innovations on farms and in wider rural areas looking at their pathways in the innovation ecosystem.
Building on the power of social networks, a series of Community of Practice networks will bring together female rural innovators identified throughout the case study process.
President of University of Galway Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh commended the project, saying: “At University of Galway, we are here for the public good.
"This project speaks to that mission in such an important aspect of the lived experience of women in our rural communities.
"We give credit here to our colleagues in their work respecting the role of women in sustaining and maintaining rural life for the generations which have gone before us and how they are key to renewing it today and into the future."
