Systemic Innovation Areas for Heritage-Led Rural Regeneration: A Multilevel Repository of Best Practices

Abstract

This paper presents the result of the analysis of the data gathered from 20 Role Models (RM) case studies regarding their successful heritage-led rural regeneration models. For the study and comparison of the narratives of these Role Models two tools were used: the Community Capitals Framework, which studied the transference of capitals in each process and the identification of six Systemic Innovation Areas that allow this capital transference. A multilevel repository of best practices has been developed allowing the identification of common features, mechanisms for mobilisation of capitals and required resources that will facilitate the replication in other rural areas. The results of this work support the acknowledgement of the contribution of culture, together with cultural and natural heritage, to economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability in rural areas reinforcing the role of culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development.

1. Introduction

Since the beginning of the 2000s, culture and cultural heritage have started to be addressed as the fourth pillar of sustainable development both in European and international policy [1,2] and research [3,4,5,6]. In this framework, the rise of culture as a solution to urban, social and economic ‘diseases’ has been celebrated without precedent and heritage-led regeneration strategies have been developed and implemented in several cases around Europe and beyond [7,8].

Nevertheless, research on heritage-led development strategies has primarily focused on large cities and metropolitan areas [9] and has addressed rural areas and small towns only to a lesser degree [10,11,12]. Thus far, the link between rural development and cultural heritage has been mainly related to tourism, analysing how local development strategies based on cultural and “heritage tourism” capitalise on Cultural and Natural Heritage (CNH) as natural, cultural and built capitals [13]. Recent work has pointed out that heritage and cultural tourism could generate a positive or a negative impact and, while improving economic development, it could also exacerbate some existing problems [14,15]. Rural cultural policy is limited, related to the urban culture-led policy discourse, [9] and rural areas have been traditionally defined by what they lack (i.e., services, population, industry, innovation, financial capacity, etc.) [10] and not by what they have.

Despite this lack of attention, heritage resources can be valuable drivers for regeneration and major contributors to social cohesion and civic engagement [2] in rural areas, which are particularly rich in CNH. While in urban areas cultural heritage mostly refers to tangible and built heritage, and has often recently been linked with the creative industries sector and community-based initiatives [6,16,17], in rural areas heritage mostly refers to rural landscape management and conservation, and intangible forms of heritage, linked with traditions, social practices, performances, etc. This dichotomy has created different narratives over time around heritage-led urban and rural regeneration, the first focusing on regeneration through culture and cultural activities, highlighting the role of built, social and human capitals, the latter mostly referring to natural capital and tourism-related benefits, neglecting other rural resources and capitals.

Indeed, we argue that rural areas would benefit from a re-conceptualisation of their capitals and heritage-led regeneration opportunities, going beyond cultural and heritage-related tourism and capitalising on the CNH-related resources owned by a community. This approach is the basis of the definition of the Systemic Innovation Areas (SIAs) of Pilgrimage, Sustainable Local Food Production, Migration, Art and festivals, Integrated Landscape Management and Resilience, identified in the RURITAGE Project (H2020 GA 776465).

The main ambition of the RURITAGE project is the creation of an innovative rural regeneration paradigm based on a holistic definition of CNH, which is interpreted according to the six SIAs. The framework of the project involved the study of 20 cases, considered as Role Models (RMs) of successful heritage-led rural regeneration from Europe and beyond. In this context, we consider an RM not only as a good practice but also as a success story that can be used as a model in a different context [18]. The RMs were diverse in their context, size, objectives and problems addressed, but they all implemented a successful process of rural regeneration, capitalising their initial capitals through one, or more, of the six identified SIAs. From the beginning, it was clear that the success of these cases was the result of processes that have grown organically.

The main ambition of this paper is to systematically study these cases and extract key factors to offer alternative ways to capitalise on the cultural and natural capital of rural areas that are not limited to cultural tourism effectiveness. The Community Capitals Framework (CCF) and the RURITAGE SIAs have been used as interpretation and harmonisation tools since they facilitate the identification of main initial resources, common patterns and achieved outcomes in diverse case studies around the world. The paper aims to support also the demonstration of the contribution of cultural and natural heritage to economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability in rural areas, reinforcing the role of culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development.

This paper describes the establishment of a multilevel repository of best practices that aims to capitalise on the experience of the 20 RMs. The extracted knowledge is identified and codified through an experience mining process to support the replication of their strategies [19]. Although the identification and communication of practices that are working have been proved to be more successful than other more abstract approaches in rural areas [18,20], to our best knowledge there are no studies on how to learn and share heritage-led rural best practices. The paper also describes and discusses the first results of the processed data regarding the challenges, processes and key resources of the RMs. Finally, to support the replication of these success stories, the six SIAs have been conceptualised through the CCF. This paper also aims to reinforce the role of cultural and natural heritage as a driver of economic development, social inclusion and environmental sustainability in rural areas, acknowledging culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development.

1.1. Community Capitals Framework (CCF)

The Community Capitals Framework (CCF) was selected since it offers a structure to consider and valorise diverse natural and cultural heritage of rural areas as a first step to transform these values in other capitals (human, social, built and financial capitals) since the accumulation of different forms of capital within a community is mutually self-reinforcing [21]. Natural and cultural capitals of rural areas could be the best opportunity to foster rural development, although other capitals have to be developed jointly [22]. It also offers the possibility to capitalise on intangible, heritage especially rich in rural areas. The richness of cognitive elements, or the way individuals think and behave, could be as important for the success of a territorial system as the material resources [23].

Rural identities shape the character of the intangible networks, norms and behaviours and these intangible resources tend to be more localised and immobile [24] and therefore better preserved in rural areas than in globalised urban environments. This framework, first proposed by Emery and Flora in 2006, has been widely used in fields related to sustainable community development through social entrepreneurship in tourism [25], resilience enhancement in rural areas [26], analysis of barriers to rural development [22] or designing of community-led regional revitalisation projects [27]. Specifically, indicators and indexes to measure community capitals have been used for the analysis of farming systems in rural communities [28] or the sustainability of former mining communities [29].

The RURITAGE paradigm consists of a new understanding of CNH as a peculiarity of rural areas, converting a range of various cultural elements and relationships into a combination of factors that can drive the development and regeneration of rural areas. In this context, the CCF considers that the growth of all forms of capital (built, natural, social, human, financial and cultural) in a community can create virtuous spirals of development [21]. Within the project, six capitals have been considered: cultural (including intangible heritage), natural, built (including built cultural heritage), social (including political), human and financial using the definitions from [30] and adapting them to Ruritage (see Table 1). These capitals have been translated into a framework to measure the effectiveness of the proposed actions and practices, evaluating them as mechanisms of capital transformation (i.e., how these actions allow the transformation of the initial stock of capital to another kind of capital).

Table 1. Community Capitals.

Capitals	Definitons by [30]	Ruritage Approach
CULTURAL CAPITAL	Cultural capital reflects the way people “know the world” and how they act within it, as well as their traditions and language. Cultural capital influences how creativity, innovation, and influence emerge and are nurtured.	In the RURITAGE context, intangible heritage and rural traditions are some of the key assets included in this capital that the project aims to capitalise on.
NATURAL CAPITAL	Natural capital refers to those assets that reside in a location, including weather, geographic isolation, natural resources, amenities, and natural beauty. Natural capital shapes the cultural capital connected to a place.	Natural Capital connected with biodiversity and landscape is one of the key assets that rural destinations traditionally take advantage of.
BUILT CAPITAL	Built capital refers to housing, transportation infrastructure, telecommunications infrastructure and hardware, utilities, heritage buildings and infrastructure.	Historic built heritage can play a key role in the heritage-led process if it is reused and maintained from a sustainability perspective.
SOCIAL CAPITAL	Social capital reflects the connections among people and organisations or the social “glue” to make things, positive or negative, happen. Bonding social capital refers to those close redundant ties that build community cohesion. Bridging social capital involves loose ties that bridge among organisations and communities. Political capital is included here and reflects access to power and to organisations and connection to resources and power brokers. Governance and political capital is included here as the ability of people to find their own voice and to engage in actions that contribute to the well-being and development of their community.	In RURITAGE, social capital is understood as the capacity of the community to build sustainable economic development networks, local mobilisation of resources, and willingness to consider alternative ways of reaching goals. Community resilience is considered among the most crucial characteristics of social capital and it is built through the development of local participatory approaches.
HUMAN CAPITAL	Human capital is understood to include the skills and abilities of people to develop and enhance their resources and to access outside resources and bodies of knowledge to increase their understanding, identify promising practices, and access data for community-building.	In RURITAGE, human capital refers to the peculiar skills and abilities coming from rural traditions and context, and it is improved through practices that contribute to the health, training and education of the population. It is strictly linked to building local capacity linked to job and income diversification to support re-population processes.
FINANCIAL CAPITAL	Financial capital refers to the financial resources available to invest in community capacity-building, to underwrite the development of businesses, to support civic and social entrepreneurship, and to accumulate wealth for future community development.	In RURITAGE, the financial capital is understood as a means to achieve the growth of the other capitals supporting civic and social entrepreneurship and to accumulate wealth for future community development.

The literature already considers natural and social capital as important competitive forces for rural areas [31] and as being among the few key assets of rural areas [32]. The RURITAGE project adds cultural capital to these, as a key asset for rural areas, especially in the form of intangible cultural heritage, and aims to use the built cultural heritage as an asset within the infrastructure capital.

1.2. Systemic Innovation Areas (SIA)

Departing from relevant studies in the field and through the initial study of the RMs, six Systematic Innovation Areas (SIA) were identified as an alternative to traditional tourism-led strategies. These six SIAs are described as follows:

SIA1—Pilgrimage: Pilgrimage, holy and hiking routes are currently valuable options for sustainable and slow tourism and economic growth in Europe and all over the world [33,34]. Indeed, some observers describe ‘route tourism’ as the world’s best hope for securing sustainability in travel and tourism [35]. Thus, heritage routes represent a good opportunity for developing less explored areas with valuable CNH that appeals to external visitors.

SIA2—Sustainable Local Food Production: Using food, wine and gastronomy to profile rural localities has become a widespread way to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of both tourism and agriculture [36]. It has been linked to the development of “alternative” food networks and a resurgent enthusiasm for food products that are perceived to be traditional and local, symbolising the place and culture of the destination [2].

SIA3—Migration: Beyond the challenges presented by the migration crisis, especially in countries most affected by migrant arrivals (e.g., Greece and Italy), and by asylum applications received (e.g., Germany), the arrival of ‘incomers’ can also create opportunities for repopulation, growth and potential for rural regeneration [37,38]. In this context, CNH, in terms of local tradition, languages, art and crafts, etc. can play an important role in boosting and accelerating the process of integration and regeneration. Moreover, highlighting the positive contribution of migrants to the development of rural areas can be fundamental to the creation of an inclusive society.

SIA4—Art and festivals: Festivals and arts exhibitions have been used as a means to attract tourists and as an economic resource in many rural areas [39]. Festivals related to ancient local traditions and products, open-air arts exhibitions and landscape museums are continuously growing and represent an important source of tourism and job creation. Furthermore, arts-involved projects for youth engagement can highlight the building of social connections, self-esteem, and community knowledge, thus promoting youth entrepreneurship and a “creative rural economy”, providing aspirational jobs and examples of entrepreneurship that are particularly attractive to young people.

SIA5—Resilience: Resilience refers to the ability of human settlements to withstand and to recover quickly from external shocks. Resilience against crises not only refers to reducing risks and damage from disasters (i.e., loss of lives and assets) but also the ability to quickly bounce back to a stable state, thus underlining the need to approach societal resilience from a 360-degree systematic approach [40]. By enhancing the role of Cultural and Natural Heritage for building resilience against the dual threats of climate change and disasters and ensuring that all development is risk-assessed, rural communities can protect against losses and simultaneously boost economic growth, create jobs and livelihoods, strengthen access to health and education, and contribute to foster the responsible ownership of CNH in rural areas.

SIA6—Integrated Landscape Management: According to the European Landscape Convention [41], the public is encouraged to take an active part in Landscape protection, conserving and maintaining its heritage value, helping to steer changes brought about by economic, social or environmental necessity, and in its planning. Successful examples of participatory landscape management built on heritage—and through their integration in regional and Smart Specialisation strategies—have been demonstrated to be an important instigator of the rural renaissance.

Within RURITAGE, the presented SIAs paradigm is not just intended as a theoretical harmonisation framework, but also as a rural regeneration model that allows rural areas to sustainably develop, which also extends to the recent COVID-19 pandemic challenges and related opportunities [42].

2. Material and Methods

The research that is described in this paper is placed within the best practice research (BPR), more specifically in the “smart practice” methodology established by E.Bardach. This methodology aims to find the “mechanisms”, medium level abstractions or conceptualisations, that codify how some successful case studies exploit latent opportunities in order to extrapolate them to other complex social environments [43].

Through this work, the authors studied 20 case studies, from across the EU and beyond, to find common patterns useful for future replicators and to highlight the role of culture and heritage as crucial drivers and pillars of sustainable development and regeneration in rural areas. Case study research has been described as suitable for over time and in context holistic study of complex issues [44]. The authors have adopted the postpositivist paradigm trying to generalise to support the replication but acknowledging the limitations of the generated knowledge. To extract the knowledge from those best practices and codify it for future use, a process of experience mining was established to build a multilevel repository. This process allowed the analysis of the case studies answering the following research questions: (i) What are the main challenges and key resources to overcome them in rural areas? (ii) Are there recognisable heritage-led regeneration processes in the 20 RMs analysed? and (iii) How can the SIAs and the Community Capitals Framework (CCF) be used as a lens to support the interpretation of heritage-led regeneration strategies? Following these research questions, this paper studies the challenges that these cases were facing and the common patterns and key resources of their heritage-led processes to address these challenges. Moreover, these case studies are studied through CCF to conceptualise the six SIAs and support the replication.

For the experience mining of the best practices, a four-step process was developed: (i) selection of case studies, (ii) data gathering, (iii) structure of the analysis and (iv) building the repository.

2.1. Selection of the Case Studies

The 20 RM case studies were selected for their successful strategies in rural heritage-led development related to one of the identified SIAs. Specifically, 13 RMs were selected in 2016 during the preparation stage of the RURITAGE project, while another 7 additional RMs were selected in 2018 following an open call issued by the projects. RMs were selected according to the following criteria: (i) relevance in relation to the six SIAs, (ii) fit with principles of integrated and sustainable rural regeneration, (iii) potential transferability, and (iv) documented impact and being evidence-based. The assessment aimed at covering the six SIAs and at ensuring a balanced geographical coverage to provide evidence in diverse contexts and further enhance replicability. Between the 2 phases, 38 RMs were considered and assessed before the selection. The following table (see Table 2) lists the selected RMs from across 16 countries. A description of the RMs and evidence of their impact can be found in Appendix A.

Table 2. List of Role Models (RMs) studied.

SIA	CODE	NAME	COUNTRY
SIA1	RM 1	Way of Saint James	Spain
	RM 2	Mary’s way	Romania
	RM 14	Digital Sanctuary	Brasil
SIA2	RM 3	Agro-food production in Apulia	Italy
	RM4	Coffee production in WH landscape	Colombia
	RM 15	Agroecological innovations in Trento	Italy
	RM 16	Smart Rural Living Lab, Penela	Portugal
SIA3	RM5	Migrants hospitality and integration in Asti Province	Italy
	RM6	Boosting migrant integration with nature in Lesvos island	Greece
SIA4	RM 8	The Living Village of the Middle Age, Visegrad	Hungary
	RM 17	Troglodyte village	Tunisia
	RM7	Take Art: Sustainable Rural Arts Development	United Kingdom
SIA5	RM9	Teaching culture for learning resilience in Crete	Greece
	RM10	Natural hazards as intangible CNH for human resilience in South-Iceland	Iceland
	RM19	Ecomuseum in Alpi Apuane	Italy
	RM20	Heritage recovery after disaster in Sanriku Fukko National Park	Japan
SIA6	RM 11	A CNH-led approach in Austrått manorial landscape	Norway
	RM12	Douro cultural landscape, driver for economic and social development	Spain
	RM 13	The Northern Headlands area of Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way	Ireland
	RM 18	The Halland Model	Sweden

2.2. Data Gathering

Through the involvement of these 20 diverse RMs, RURITAGE partners adopted a standardised process to gather information from the RMs through three diverse data campaigns in 2019, illustrated in Table 3.

Table 3. Data gathering strategy with relevant dates, objectives and methods.

Campaign	Dates	Objectives	Methods
Summer campaign	July 2018–November 2018	Identification of best practices and their relevance. Context of the RM that included administrative, geographical, demography and transportation information. Narrative of the regeneration process (key factors, timeline and actors). Heritage and non-heritage resources.	Spreadsheets sent to the RM case studies
Autumn campaign	November 2018–January 2019	Validation of Summer campaign results and identify and define the role and function of cross-cutting themes.	Spreadsheets sent to the RM case studies
Winter campaign	February 2019–June 2019	Fill the information gaps identified to complete the analysis from the Practices Repository and to further identify the key success factors for heritage-led rural regeneration in the sites	Targeted: bilateral validations and project workshops (Valladolid 19–22 March and Crete 28–30 May)

The information was gathered within this common strategy to optimise the process and avoid overlaps. The data gathered were then analysed using the Community Capital Framework (CCF) [21] and the RURITAGE SIAs as harmonisation tools to find common patterns and replicable solutions.

2.3. Levels of Analysis

The analysis was structured in four levels: the aforementioned SIAs, the Role Models (RMs), the Role Model Actions (RMAs) and the Lessons Learnt (LLs) as illustrated in Figure 1. The RMAs are specific actions of each case study that were considered to be relevant for the heritage-led process and LL are replicable actions that can be distilled from the previous levels. This paper focuses on the analysis of the first two levels, namely the SIAs, the RMs and their relevant actions.

Figure 1. Levels of analysis followed during the research.

At the level of the RM, the specific context of each case study was investigated, together with an in-depth analysis of the factors and characteristics that led to successful heritage-led rural regeneration practices. The material collected for each RM through the three campaigns was structured in a systemic and harmonised way, to facilitate the understanding of the processes and strategies underpinning the practice. For this, four main attributes were considered: challenges, process, key resources and the transference of capitals.

For each RM, its specific geographic and economic context was described and the challenges which the area is currently facing were identified. To be comparable and to further extract replicable strategies, challenges which are commonly related to rural areas, were re-classified according to the following categories: (i) population ageing; (ii) immigration; (iii) depopulation; (iv) unemployment and (v) poverty and further validated through a review of the literature [45].

The process of each RM was sequenced in different milestones and was grouped into 13 categories: governance model and collaboration, promotion, action and financial planning (including research projects), official declaration, capacity building and professionalisation, infrastructure development (including digital and reuse of buildings), knowledge building and documentation, vision, international collaboration, model creation, events organisation, diversification and external triggers. This process facilitated the search for common patterns between RMs within the same SIA and also similar temporal frameworks. The key drivers of the regeneration and the barriers encountered that hindered the implementation were also analysed.

Among the six capitals considered in the project (cultural, natural, built, social, human and financial), these were identified as either initial, developed or achieved. In each RM, therefore, initial capital was identified, actions and mechanisms of capital transformation were described (developed) and final achievements reported (achieved). Knowledge building necessary to support the overall approach was also reported. The conceptualisation of SIAs is an abstraction of the RMs’ successful heritage-led rural regeneration practices that were analysed, which can be used for the replication and knowledge transfer of development strategies based on innovation fields. Each SIA was characterised according to the following attributes:

• General characterisation: includes the seasonality, as a change or pattern in a given period of the year; the key resources needed to build a strategy that capitalises on unique and differentiated cultural and natural resources, the replicability potential and the driver for change, considering that the SIA can be development driven or challenge-driven.
• Challenges: identifies to which challenges (population ageing, immigration, depopulation, unemployment and poverty), the SIA can contribute.
• Capitals: identifies the relevance of each capital in the framework of the SIA, the initial capital needed, the required ones for development by defining general concepts or actions for improvement and the achieved ones, as expected results.

2.4. Building the Repository

The information collected during the three campaigns enabled the undertaking of a detailed analysis of the characteristics and heritage-led regeneration processes of each RM. In order to avoid losing relevant information, RMs were asked to fulfil data according to already pre-classified categories or free text. In this last case, especially in key resources characterisation and keywords, an in-depth analysis of the information received was performed and similarities across cases were sought. Inputs provided in these categories revealed similarities and, to harmonise information and provide filtering capacity, a common terminology was established, allowing for better comparison across the cases (see Table 4).

Table 4. Structure of the repository.

Levels	Characterisation					Process					Keywords
SIA	replicability	key resources	challenges	driver for changing	seasonal	capital transference mechanism					keywords
				development		relevance
				challenge		initial
						developed
						obtained
RM	replicability	key resources	challenges	drivers	context	capital transference mechanism	knowledge building	barriers	co-benefits	process	keywords
			ageing of the population		geography	initial				milestone
			immigrants		main economic sector	developed				year
			depopulation		size of influence	obtained				conceptual step
			unemployment
			poverty
RMA	replicability	key elements	objectives		initial conditions	related capital	capital transference mechanism				keywords
						financial
						social
						built
						natural
						cultural
						human
COLOUR CODE			FREE TEXT
			CATEGORIES
			BOTH
			KEYWORDS

3. Results and Discussion

The experience mining process allowed a comparative study of the case studies. This paper focused on an initial analysis of the extracted knowledge.

3.1. Challenges

The five challenges identified, together with RMs, denote typical negative trends in rural areas that have been exacerbated during the last decades and which, in many cases, represent a barrier to rural development. Most of the RMs analysed faced challenges related to population ageing and depopulation of rural areas, followed by poverty, unemployment and immigration (see Table 5). In most of the cases RMs, by their strategies, had to address more than one challenge, typically between two and four. Most of the SIAs are related to challenges dealing with population ageing, depopulation and poverty, while challenges related to immigration and unemployment are more specific to some of the SIAs, even though these are partially addressed by almost all of them. From the five challenges identified in the RMs (population ageing, immigration, depopulation, unemployment and poverty) four have been acknowledged by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe [45]. Migration processes have not been identified as a challenge, but, as can be seen from this study, it is a specific challenge that only the RMs from the Migration SIA (SIA3) are fully facing.

Table 5. Challenges per RM and SIA (SIA 1 = Pilgrimage, SIA 2 = Sustainable Local Food, SIA 3 = Migration, SIA 4 = Art and festivals, SIA 5 = Resilience and SIA 6 = Landscape Management).

	RM																				SIA
CHALLENGE	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	1	2	3	4	5	6
POPULATION AGEING
IMMIGRANTS
DEPOPULATION
UNEMPLOYMENT
POVERTY

Main challenges are shown in dark grey, secondary or challenges only partially addressed are shown in light grey.

RMs related to Pilgrimage (SIA1) identified depopulation and poverty as main challenges, followed by unemployment and population ageing; Sustainable local food production (SIA2) RMs indicated depopulation and poverty as main challenges and population ageing and unemployment as partially addressed challenges; Migration (SIA3) is strictly related to the influx of immigrants, associated with population ageing, depopulation and unemployment; Arts and festivals (SIA4) mainly addressed population ageing and poverty and immigration, emphasising depopulation and unemployment to a lesser degree; RMs associated with Resilience (SIA5) faced population ageing, depopulation and poverty and partially immigration and unemployment; Integrated Landscape Management (SIA6) addressed population ageing, depopulation and poverty, followed by immigration and unemployment.

3.2. Process

As Neumeier [46] stated for social innovation processes in rural areas, developing a cause–effect model linking the factors of success and timing is not easy, but the chronological study of the processes of our RMs helps to identify the necessary steps that could lead to success. As it has been characterised worldwide, there is not a defined way to succeed in rural regeneration, but the capacity and flexibility of the rural inhabitants to address external challenges and drivers are key to determining the fate of their communities [47]. According to the narratives of the case studies, the success of the RM was in many cases the result of a combination of planned and unexpected circumstances. These latter ones turned into positive elements when stakeholders were able to capture the opportunities and possibilities given by external factors and align them with the planned process. In order to compare the different processes followed by each RM, each process was mapped according to the year in which it was initiated and the sequence of milestones that followed (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Analysis of the processes followed by each RM. Each process is mapped according to the year in which it was initiated (YEAR) and the sequence of milestones that followed.

There is no clear correlation between SIAs and the pattern of the process that followed for each RM. The differences are more related to the year that the RM started their processes. In the older RMs (before 2005), official recognition of the site (either cultural or natural) was generally the first triggering action of the regeneration process but in more modern ones (after 2006) the need to address common challenges that arose in recent years in Europe, such as population ageing and unemployment, make it necessary to establish a common vision first.

The two key steps that the majority of the RMs addressed have been the governance and collaboration strategies between stakeholders and the definition of clear planning of actions and financing, which in many cases was related to research or cooperation projects. In this sense, the importance of the governance model and collaborative approaches as one of the main factors for success observed in the RMs supports what the literature has already described [48]. Only one of the RMs did not undertake any of these two key steps. In most of the cases, it was noted that a key stakeholder, with leadership and influencing capacity, was necessary to ensure the financial, political and technical coordination and support for the regeneration. This role was usually taken by a Public Administration. Furthermore, the inclusion and the enthusiasm of the private sector and civil society is key to ensuring the continuation and achievement of the activities planned. Lastly, the communication and promotion of the RM were also important in 55% of the cases.

3.3. Key Resources

Each RM has several unique and differentiated cultural and natural resources that have acted as key resources for their regeneration processes. A total of 33 key resources were identified when analysing the facts that influenced the RMs’ success. The most common resources were the incidence of Natural Landscape and the Historic Assets of the sites, being the main drivers for nearly all the RMs’ regeneration processes (see Figure 3). Amongst the rest of the key resources, 19 of those played a crucial role in the regeneration process for more than one RM and 14 of those were identified as relevant in the success of just one RM each.

Figure 3. Key resources’ significance to RMs.

Reflecting on these key resources and looking at their significance on the SIAs, which provides a more comprehensive analysis, the conclusion obtained was that, in addition to the abovementioned Natural Landscape and Historic Assets significance, five other resources were relevant to one or more SIAs. Traditional skills and traditions fostered the processes in most of the SIAs (moreover taking into account that, apart from traditions themselves, the particular focus of traditions, such as Religious Traditions, Food Traditions or Cultural Traditions were identified as the key resource of certain SIAs). Additionally, Local Products and businesses, as well as local Human Resources were highly present, helping the success of two SIAs (2—Sustainable Local Food Production and 3—Migration). Geoparks were a significant resource in two SIAs (2—Sustainable Local Food Production and 6—Integrated Landscape Management). Finally, 26 key resources were particularly related to the success of sites in one SIA, and not significant at all for the rest of the SIAs.

3.4. Conceptualisation of SIAs and Transference of Capitals

Amongst the six Capitals, Cultural, Social and Natural Capital were the most relevant as the initial starting point of the sites’ Capital Transference processes (see Table 6). These three capitals were present in most of the RMs (more than 75%). Additionally, Human Capital appeared significant in 70% of the RMs. Financial and Built capitals were rarely a starting capital for the RMs. The analysis of the Capital Transference of each RM can be seen in Appendix B. This reiterates the analysis made for the challenges and the relationships with the six SIAs and, in this way, the success of the regeneration processes is more easily appreciable. Having sound initial capitals, the sites developed the processes and gained in all the capitals, particularly emphasising the success in the financial one. This means that starting from having at least two of the abovementioned three Capitals (Cultural, Social and Natural), most of the successful regeneration processes developed activities in other capitals and achieved success related to other capitals, with Financial Capital acquiring increasing significance. In other words, Financial Capital was never a starting point but a goal.

Table 6. Relevance of capitals for RM (highlighted in grey colour when relevant) and SIAs (H for High Relevance, VH for Very High Relevance).

Table 7 shows the characterisation of the SIAs in relation to their key resources, highlighting potential replicability, drivers and seasonality. Concerning drivers, the analysis of the RMs has shown that there are two big groups of SIAs: the ones that can be considered as development-driven (SIA 1–2–4–6) and the ones that can be considered as challenge-driven (SIA 3–5). The former ones are related to Pilgrimage, Sustainable local food, Arts and festivals and Integrated landscape management SIAs. The latter ones are related to Migration and resilience SIAs. As already presented in Table 7 that lists initial capitals, key starting resources can be grouped to find similar patterns among RMs belonging to the same SIAs (Table 8).

Table 7. Characterisation of SIAs based on their potential replicability, driver, seasonality and key resources.

	SIA 1 Pilgrimage	SIA 2 Sustainable Local Food	SIA 3 Migration	SIA 4 Art and festivals	SIA 5 Resilience	SIA 6 Landscape Management
SEASONALITY	Medium	Depends on the food	Low	High	Low	Low
REPLICABILITY	Medium-low	High	Medium-high	High	Medium-high	Medium
DRIVER	Development	Development	Challenge	Development	Challenge	Development
KEY RESOURCES	Disperse CH Pilgrimage route Information about the assets Cross-region governance	Agricultural and hostelry infrastructure Intangible CH (food traditions) Agricultural and human resources	Inclusive society Dwellings Openness	Events Infrastructure Recognisable brand Intangible CH (music and traditions)	Risk knowledge Training Collaboration	Valuable landscape Knowledge in CH Participatory mechanisms

Table 8. Transference of capitals for SIA (C = cultural capital, N = natural capital, B = built capital, S = social capital, H = human capital and F = financial capital, H for High Relevance, VH for Very High Relevance).

Code		Rel.	Initial	Developed	Achieved
SIA 1	C	VH	religious		broad dissemination of the CH
	N	VH	landscape		broad dissemination of the NH
	B	H	disperse building CH	tourism/transport infrastructure	improvement of built CH
	H			capacity building	better jobs
	S	H		cross-region governance	networking governance
	F				jobs and business opportunities through tourism
SIA2	C	VH	gastronomy		broad dissemination of the CH (gastronomy)
	N	VH	local products		sustainable agriculture
	B			hostelry infrastructure
	H	H		capacity building	better jobs
	S			collaboration
	F				jobs through services and industry
SIA3	C	H	diverse CH		cultural enrichment
	N		diverse NH		improved safeguarding of NH
	B			hospitality structures for migrants	Improvements of CH buildings
	H	H	migrants	capacity building	migrants well being
	S	H	social memory	volunteering, collaboration	social inclusiveness
	F				business and jobs opportunities
SIA4	C	VH	intangible		cultural enrichment (arts)
	N
	B			infrastructure for the events	new infrastructures/ CH restoration
	H			human resources for the events	better jobs
	S			management
	F				job/business opportunities
SIA5	C	H		recompilation of local knowledge	better safeguarding of CH
	N	VH	landscape		better safeguarding of NH
	B			risk knowledge	better safeguarding of built heritage
	H				safer conditions
	S	VH		stakeholder cooperation
	F				economic development of the area
SIA 6	C	VH	cultural landscape		CH conservation
	N	VH	natural landscape		NH conservation
	B			knowledge building
	H			training	better jobs
	S			collaboration between stakeholders	networking governance
	F				business and jobs opportunities through tourism

As can be seen in Table 8, in general, in the development-driven RMs the initially high cultural and natural capitals are transformed, by the development of built capital, human capital (especially by capacity building) and social capital (especially by collaboration between stakeholders), in the growth of the financial capital (through job and business opportunities) together with the enrichment of the other capitals (cultural enrichment, natural heritage preservation, improvement of infrastructures, well-being enhancement and network collaboration). Similar results are obtained by challenge-driven RMs but, in their case, the initial capitals that are mobilised are more related to human and social resources. The initial capitals are core to the regeneration process; a good understanding of the resources of the territory is essential to undergo any action of valorisation, improvement and development.

4. Conclusions and Future Work

The selected RMs have demonstrably and successfully pursued heritage-led rural regeneration, resulting in increased jobs and revenues, a more sustainable tourism sector, mental well-being, ICT development and improved accessibility by exploiting natural, cultural heritage (tangible and intangible) in different ways. The RMs have, in this way, contributed to improving the quality of life of rural residents, fostering social and environmental regeneration, sustainable development and economic growth.

The challenges identified in the RMs confirmed the ones that the literature already acknowledged, except for Migration which is a specific challenge for the Migration SIA (SIA 3). Examples from this SIA, like the case of Lesvos (RM6) and the case of Asti (RM 5), show that this could be an innovative path to convert challenges into opportunities for development. In these cases, migrants’ and refugees’ arrival needed a thorough response from the community. To boost mutual understanding and integration with the local population, several educational activities, exhibitions and tours were organised, resulting in abandoned historic buildings being restored and recovered with the involvement of asylum seekers.

There is not a predetermined path towards successful heritage-led rural regeneration, but the adaptation and coping capacities to external challenges are key. This is particularly relevant for the Resilience SIA (SIA5), such as Katla Geopark (RM10) where the traditional way of spreading awareness through storytelling led to the creation of an institutional network to provide guidance to population and tourists on protective measures during and after disaster occurrence; or Psiloritis Geopark in Crete (RM9), where educational and training activities for the community are enriched by the remembrance of previous hazards. Similarly, in the Sustainable Local Food Production SIA (SIA2), the threat of the urban way of living into the rural needed an adaptive response from the communities; this is the case of Apulia region (RM3), where capacity building and cooperation between rural and urban citizens led to the maintenance of the environment by the use of gastronomy and sustainable food production.

The collected data and information obtained from RMs has been remarkable in quantity and quality, and its study has allowed the validation of six SIAs whose intersections can constitute a European model of heritage-led rural development. The initial cultural and natural capitals can be transformed through the development of built, human and social capitals, obtaining financial capital along with the development of other capitals (see Table 8). Pilgrimage SIA (SIA1) is significant in this sense, and the Way of Saint James (RM1) is a remarkable example of how initial cultural heritage values of the territory, together with built religious heritage and natural resources (landscape), were developed through recognition, protection, improvement of infrastructure and investment obtaining noteworthy upgrading on human, social and financial capitals. It is also the case of the Integrated Landscape Management SIA (SIA6) where, for example in Douro river basin (RM12), the existing natural capital was transformed by developing action plans on the dispersed built heritage, defining protected geographical indications (brand recognition) and, above all, following a strong associative and alliance process, resulting in a vibrant economic activity on the territory (financial capital). The SIA 5 (Arts and Festivals) boosts the initial cultural capital, mostly intangible heritage, to obtain better jobs and opportunities (human and financial capitals). The SIA regarding resilience (SIA5) is an exception, where the compilation of local knowledge (social memory) is key for the transformation of the initial significance of natural capital.

The analysis described in this paper was the first step in the process of analysing the RMs in the RURITAGE project. Future work will include the analysis of Role Model Actions and their relationship with cross-cutting issues and a deeper analysis of the involvement of the stakeholders. This could lead to the abstraction and conceptualisation of the lessons learnt to be included in the multilevel repository as specific and replicable strategies for replicators. Another future work should study the post-COVID situation, that could pose new opportunities for rural areas if the predicted urban “exodus” and change in global trends to domestic rural tourism are materialised [49,50].