[Brussels, 23/03/2026] — Rural Europe holds the resources, talent and entrepreneurial drive needed to power the next generation of circular and digital bioeconomy solutions. With DRIVE — Driving Rural Innovation through startup Villages across Europe — that potential is being turned into concrete regional action. Funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe, DRIVE supports rural startups, SMEs and innovation actors in building stronger ecosystems, developing scalable business models and connecting local ideas to wider European value chains.
At its core, DRIVE responds to a structural gap: while rural regions offer major opportunities for sustainable growth, diversification and climate resilience, innovators outside major urban hubs still face barriers in access to finance, networks, knowledge, markets and advanced digital infrastructure. DRIVE addresses that divide by empowering entrepreneurs and local ecosystems to develop solutions that are not only bio-based and circular, but also investment-ready, collaborative and replicable across Europe.
The project is built around three interconnected pillars: identifying regional needs and opportunities, running place-based roadshows and hackathons, and providing tailored mentoring for technology and business development. This integrated approach is designed to move promising ideas from local challenge identification to solution testing, investor readiness and long-term market uptake. DRIVE’s broader ambition is not simply to support individual startups, but to strengthen the ecosystems around them — linking municipalities, researchers, cooperatives, investors, public authorities and innovation intermediaries in a shared transition toward a greener and more digital rural economy.
A central part of this work is the DRIVE Roadshow series in Bohinj (Slovenia), Serres (Greece), and Le Bourget-du-Lac (France). Each roadshow is rooted in a locally defined innovation challenge, demonstrating how Startup Villages can become launchpads for stronger regional value chains. In Bohinj, the focus is on strengthening local agri-food value chains, improving traceability and reducing food waste. In Serres, the emphasis is on upcycling agricultural waste and biomass while supporting sustainable agri-food and bioenergy applications. In Le Bourget-du-Lac, the challenge is to pool local resources, enable regenerative tourism and support symbiotic innovation across sectors.
These roadshows combine expert-led sessions, challenge-based hackathons and cross-sector exchange to give participants both strategic insight and practical support. Across the three events, DRIVE engaged more than 250 participants, supported over 50 teams, and selected 12 projects for continued mentoring. The programme is also structured around 240 hours of mentoring, three Startup Village Action Plans, and the acceleration of 12 startups, translating regional experimentation into longer-term ecosystem development.
Beyond the events themselves, DRIVE offers targeted post-hackathon support focused on five strategic areas: sustainability and bio-based business models, investors and digital platforms, effective pitching and communication, access to finance, and social innovation for SMEs. This means startups are supported not only in refining their ideas, but in understanding where they fit in the market, how they can build partnerships along the value chain, and how they can position themselves for investment, growth and replication.
The project’s early results already point to the value of this methodology. Stakeholder feedback collected after the roadshows shows a strong level of satisfaction with the relevance of the themes, the quality of mentoring, and the opportunities for networking and collaboration. Participants particularly valued the combination of technical, social and territorial perspectives — a sign that rural innovation works best when it is embedded in real communities, real supply chains and real regional priorities.
By connecting Startup Villages to investors, knowledge providers, public authorities and market actors, DRIVE is helping rural regions move from isolated initiatives to integrated innovation ecosystems. From agri-food and bio-based materials to energy systems, industrial symbiosis and digital tools, the project shows that rural areas are not peripheral to Europe’s transition: they are essential to it. DRIVE is turning local challenges into collaborative solutions — and collaborative solutions into stronger, more resilient value chains for Europe’s circular and digital bioeconomy.
About DRIVE
DRIVE (Driving Rural Innovation through startup Villages across Europe) is a Horizon Europe project coordinated by Consorzio Italbiotec under Grant Agreement No. 101181939. The project supports rural innovation through needs assessment, roadshows, hackathons, mentoring and ecosystem-building activities aimed at advancing a circular, sustainable and digitally enabled bioeconomy across Europe.
