At early stage, RURALITIES builds the ‘RURALITIES Augmented Knowledge Alliance’ materialised by a community of practice of 10.000+ individuals and experts of RURNex actors worldwide and 1.000+ facilitators, convened by a shared vision and responsibility via Memorandum of Understanding and the ‘RURALITIES observatory’ of rural innovation hosted by a digital platform yet to be identified.

To ensure the achievement of this number of individuals and experts, RURALITIES identifies rural people from the project’s SIMSES who are understood as “influential”. The assistance of local recognised and influential individuals (influencers), who can come from a vast number of socio-economic background spanning from community leaders, farmers , entrepreneurs, to mayors or local governing agents, and more globally by all individuals in all targeted SIMSES, is of significant importance to succeed in this engagement.

RURALITIES implements a quadruple helix approach involving the collaboration among four key stakeholders – academia, government, industry, and civil society – to promote innovation and development in six targeted SIMSES.

In particular, RURALITIES bring together farmers, local businesses, community organisations, academic institutions, and government agencies to collaborate and contribute to rural innovation and development, especially via:

• knowledge exchange and dissemination, the community of practice (CoP) serve as a platform for knowledge sharing and dissemination among the different stakeholders; farmers and local businesses can share their experiences and best practices, while academic institutions can provide research-based knowledge and expertise
  
  
• co-creation of solutions, the CoP facilitate co-creation of solutions to address the challenges faced by rural populations in the targeted SIMSES, for example, farmers can work with researchers to develop new farming techniques that are better suited to the local conditions
  
  
• technology adoption, here the CoP plays a key role in promoting the adoption of new technologies among rural populations, for example, local businesses can work with government agencies to identify and adopt new technologies that can improve their operations and productivity
  
  
• policy advocacy, here the CoP facilitates advocacy for policies that support rural innovation and development, namely work with government agencies to develop policies that promote entrepreneurship and innovation among rural populations