West Cork Development Partnership

On Friday last, I traveled to Bantry, County Cork to speak at the West Cork Development Partnership Rural Development Conference.   Some interesting speakers from UCC provided the audience to a demonstration on CSO and mapping, while Dr. Brendan O Keeffe, University of Limerick gave an excellent presentation challenging the future direction of rural development policy.
My presentation, Shaping Intervention for Sustainable Rural Development, was based on research work carried out on the DERREG (Developing Europe's Rural Regions in an Era of Globalization) Project.  In many respects there is a difficulty in presenting for an audience consisting of rural practitioners when one is more familiar with presenting at academic conferences.  As such, my presentation required a practical element which was relevant to individuals and groups working within rural communities, and on rural specific projects.  In realizing my objective, I provided the context for my presentation while presenting relevant case studies, which appeared to stimulate some interesting questions within the audience.

 

Master of Arts in Rural Sustainability

This September, the Discipline of Geography (School of Geography & Archaeology), NUI Galway launched a new Masters Programme in Rural Sustainability.  The Programme has been devised in response to increasing attention on the role and function of rural economies and societies in global, national and local terms.  On the one hand, we identify a clearly emerging set of concerns associated with rural change and development that have far-reaching implications not just in a rural context, but in wider economic and societal terms.  However, the means by which such change should be managed to the greatest advantage of rural places and populations requires the insertion of well-informed critical thinkers on rural issues into relevant policy, practice and academic domains.

The official launch of the MA will take place in NUI Galway on the 19th December.  

http://about.me/maura_farrell