Regional Development and Innovation
Bachelor of Rural Innovation
Career opportunities
Globalisation results in a continuous change of the rural situation (agricultural and non-agricultural) and of the interaction between the rural and urban domain. This leads to challenges in the area of marginalisation of small rural producers, food security and safety, resource management, market liberalisation, multi-functional agriculture and agrarian reform and rural information management. Against this background Rural Innovation policies have been reviewed, resulting in more programmes and projects with an interdisciplinary and participatory nature and more rural development programmes.
As a RDI-Professional you have gained a wide range of expertise in the area of communication, participatory planning and learning, rural economics, development approaches, agriculture, cultures, nature conservation, tourism, water management, sociology and environmental studies. Important attitudes are related to entrepreneurship, flexibility, empathy, sensitivity, reliability, thoroughness, client - and cooperative orientation.
Career opportunities do exist in projects and programmes in rural areas in and outside the EU. You will work as junior facilitator and process manager in these kind of regional development programmes, both in European and Non-European countries. You may find yourself working in a government institution, consultancy firm, in a service centre or innovation group with rural entrepreneurs. You will be perfectly equipped for positions with development organisations such as CMC, VSO, or PSO, or in companies and private organisations that carry out projects around the world. You will bring together stakeholders of the region, facilitate their efforts and enhance their networking. You will pick up new ideas and trends, and use them in policy making and concrete activities. In this way you can help people in the field to make a difference. Whether you work in your own or in another country you will be a mediator between groups of organisations for a better collaboration.
Erika Kommers from The Netherlands
student
"My world is the world. I love to travel. I have lived with immensely wealthy people, but I have worked in slums as well. It is just fantastic; al those different people, their music, and culture. And my field of work encompasses it all!
For my final thesis I would like to go to an Asian country, the Middle East, or North Africa. I would like to do research into community development or the position of women in Islamitic countries, because I am, and will always be, a true people person."
"To get into contact with other cultures is one of the best aspects of this study."