The project for the development of social innovation hubs was completed with the publication of the "Handbook for Rural Development Using Mobile Rural Hubs".
The project for the development of pop-up rural social innovation hubs in selected rural areas in Međimurje and on the island of Vis has been completed, in which VERN' participated as a partner in defining the methodology of rural hubs, testing the methodology, and educating stakeholders and partners to conduct mentoring activities on innovative and entrepreneurial projects.
Other project partners also participated in designing the methodology: LAG Međimurski doli i bregi, LAG Škoji, the ACT association, and academic partners FOI from Varaždin and the Križevci College of Agriculture.
To implement this project, workshops were held for representatives of civil society organizations and students from all three higher education institutions, and they were taught about entrepreneurship, design thinking and marketing by our lecturers , M. Sc. Gordana Ćorić and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sc. Jadranka Ivanković .
The knowledge and useful advice accumulated during the project were compiled in the "Handbook for Rural Development Using Mobile Rural Hubs" , the publication of which completed the implementation of this project, and one of the editors of the handbook was our lecturer Gordana Ćorić.
"The manual provides an excellent roadmap for anyone interested in implementing rural development by encouraging innovative and entrepreneurial projects. Based on the initially developed methodology and the experiences gained during the testing and implementation of the project, we have adopted numerous useful lessons and translated them into recommendations, which will help not only in creating effective initiatives in partnership with local stakeholders, but also in the broader application of the concept of socially useful learning for students. The POP-UP (mobile) rural socio-innovative hubs project enabled our students to apply the acquired knowledge and skills to specific projects, but at the same time enriched some projects in rural areas and enabled mutual inspiration among the partners involved," she pointed out.
On this occasion, we would like to thank VERN's students who participated in the testing of the rural mobile hub on the island of Vis: Filip Antić , Ivan Roko Berač , Monika Čataković , Mateo Faber , Tamara Knežević , Klara Krunić , Laura Lapenda , Tonći Pešić , Lucija Svetec , Davor Ante Tadić , Ema Vukelic and Luka Živko .
