Perceptions and operationalisation of rural resilience in practice

Mikolič, Sara (author), O'Sullivan, Shane (author), Potočnik Slavič, Irma (author), Adam Hernández, Alistair (author)

In recent years, the European Commission has actively promoted the concept of rural resilience (European Commission, 2025), but there are still many divergent views on the operationalisation of the concept at EU, national and local levels. Drawing from quantitative and qualitative evidence (e-survey, 18 semi-structured interviews and four focus groups), from studies based in Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia and EU-wide perspective, we analysed the practitioners’ understanding of rural resilience; and identified key factors and challenges for implementation in practice. Findings reveal that, while rural resilience is a conceptual construct open to multiple interpretations, a clear distinction can be observed between theoretical and practitioner interpretations. Theoretical perspectives tend to adopt a broader, more systematic view of rural resilience, transformative and “bouncing forward” approaches, whereas practitioner interpretations are typically narrower, focusing on robustness, adaptability, context-specific actions and immediate community needs. Our findings have implications for policy formation, highlighting that resilience is a long-term process rather than a fixed outcome.

• Language: English
• Keywords: rural resilience, transformative resilience, adaptation, community resilience, rural development
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication date: 01.04.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 37-51
• Numbering: Vol. 18, no. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-182124
• UDC: 711.3:330.34(4-6EU)
• ISSN on article: 1803-8417
• DOI: 10.2478/euco-2026-0003
• COBISS.SI-ID: 274190851

Copyright

Licenca CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 je navedena na spletni strani revije.

• Publication date in RUL: 24.04.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: European Countryside
• Shortened title: Eur. Countrys.
• Publisher: Mendelova zemědělská a lesnická univerzita v Brně, Mendelova univerzita v Brně
• ISSN: 1803-8417
• COBISS.SI-ID: 6922105

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
• Description: You are free to reproduce and redistribute the material in any medium or format. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: odpornost podeželja, transformativna odpornost, prilagajanje, odpornost skupnosti, razvoj podeželja

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: ERASMUS+
• Project number: 2021-1-IE01-KA220-VET-000033321
• Name: Fostering Resilience in Rural Communities
• Acronym: REBOUND