Small Places Matter and the Right to Stay: New Perspectives

This territorial study aims to deliver territorial evidence on development opportunities in Norway’s rural and peripheral regions, with a particular focus on the role of small places as active agents of change and consider the "right to stay" as a potential guiding principle for territorial cohesion. The project will develop a conceptual framework integrating agency, connectivity, and resilience to reconsider what constitutes "success" for small places; provide a territorial typology of small and peripheral places based on identified key drivers of success and systemic barriers in the Norwegian context; present a series of showcases illustrating diverse development pathways; and deliver a set of actionable policy recommendations on governance models, capacity building and financing approaches that can enable change agency in local communities.