Start in Mountains

Mountains rural areas (MRA) cover nearly 30 % of EU territory. In total 17 % of Europe’s population (118 million people), and 13 % of the EU population (63 million) live in mountain areas. During the period 2015-2020, these territories have lost 0.1% of their population each year.
The challenge for the public authorities is to find a formula capable of addressing the rampant population loss in MRA, a phenomenon that brings with it the loss of services or obstacles to repopulation such as major concerns about the loss of employment opportunities, lower incomes, access to transport or good connectivity.
In this sense, the use of innovation can give a new opportunity to these territories and create long-term value through the Startup Villages concept: place or network of small places that embrace innovation and the ambition to provide favourable conditions for entrepreneurs and also innovative ecosystems to thrive.
Start in Mountains(SIM) aims strive to facilitate and ensure the favourable conditions in mountain rural areas for place-based entrepreneurial and innovative ecosystems to flourish and thrive, as well as shaping actions for startup-driven innovation in these territories, via the improvement of Policy Instruments.
To this end, SIM develops an inter-regional cooperation scheme composed byEUROMONTANA as advisory partner, and 7 partners from 7 regions in 7 countries spread over Europe with a balance of more or lesss developed.
The interregional exchange and learning process activities include, Interregional thematic workshops & peer reviews, a territorial mapping exercise & joint qualitative survey, regional reports & interregional analysis, that together with the regional stakeholders meetings, will enable the improvement of policy instruments addressed. Sharing experiences, good practices, knowledge and learnings, SIM will facilitate and ensure favourable conditions in mountain rural areas for place-based entrepreneurial and innovative ecosystems to flourish