On April 30th, the FLIARA project hosted a high-level online webinar titled “3rd FLIARA Online Community of Practice Event: Bridging Private and Public Funding for Women Innovators in Agriculture and Rural Areas”, bringing together EU-level experts, business developers, academia, and rural innovators to explore ways to improve access to funding for women in agriculture and rural communities. The webinar formed part of FLIARA’s effort to connect stakeholders and promote a more inclusive and supportive innovation ecosystem.
Opening the session, Associate Professor Maura Farrell, FLIARA Project Coordinator, introduced the project’s aims and highlighted the key issue at hand: women across Europe are innovating in rural areas — in farming, sustainability, and beyond — yet many lack viable access to public or private funding to grow their ideas. This reality creates a significant bottleneck for rural transformation and gender equality. Farrell underlined that one of FLIARA’s core ambitions is to address this challenge by fostering connections, building capacities, and proposing concrete policy solutions based on evidence collected from twenty national case studies.
She noted that women-led innovations often diverge from the conventional, tech-heavy projects that tend to attract investors and are instead rooted in social, environmental, or cultural aims. While these initiatives are crucial for sustainable rural development, they are frequently undervalued or overlooked by funding bodies. This gap inspired the webinar’s goal: to raise awareness about available tools, explore alternative pathways to financing, and better understand the structural barriers that women innovators face.
The webinar featured contributions from several experts in rural innovation, funding, and entrepreneurship. Eleftherios (Terry) Stavropoulos from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre presented the EU Rural Toolkit, an interactive guide to funding opportunities for rural development and innovation. He also introduced the Startup Village initiative and gave an overview of how smart rural innovation is taking shape across Europe, supported by EU policies that aim to bring innovation closer to communities outside urban areas.
Marta Yonkova from the EU CAP Network spoke about the role of EIP-AGRI and the potential of multi-actor innovation partnerships. Drawing from her experience in EU rural development programmes, she explained how Operational Groups can be formed to address shared challenges and how farmers, researchers, and other rural actors can work together to access funding and implement innovative solutions. She highlighted that innovation is not just about new technology — it’s about collaboration, knowledge exchange, and responding to real community needs.
Triin Uustalu, CEO and co-founder of AskGrant, offered practical advice to women who are developing projects and seeking financial support. She emphasised the importance of confidence, clarity, and taking action rather than waiting for perfection. In her view, rural innovators often self-exclude because they believe their projects don’t “fit” the traditional startup mould — a perception that must change. Her message was empowering: “The world needs your rural perspective,” she told participants, encouraging them to explore a mix of grants, investment, and creative funding models.
Fábio Santos, from the Science and Technology Park TERINOV in the Azores, led an insightful session on how to prepare an investment pitch. He broke down the key components of a compelling pitch deck and offered tips on how to engage investors, particularly business angels who value both financial return and social impact. He illustrated his presentation with a real example of a woman innovator who developed a successful business model with community benefits at its core.
The Q&A session, moderated by Anastasia Oprea from ECOLISE, provided space for further reflection and exchange. One of the key themes was gender inequality in rural innovation ecosystems. While men still dominate in farming ownership and leadership roles, women are increasingly present in support structures, knowledge-sharing networks, and sustainable enterprises. Yet, as speakers noted, funding programmes still do not sufficiently account for the specific barriers women face — including lack of collateral, limited access to advisory services, and undervaluation of social and environmental innovation.
Stavropoulos emphasised that the shift towards more inclusive and diverse innovation is already underway. He showcased a map of promising startup villages across Europe and reiterated the need to change the narrative: rural areas are no longer peripheral to innovation — they are its new frontier.
The webinar closed with a presentation of the FLIARA Toolkit by Oprea, who invited attendees to explore the project’s insights and practical resources. Available at https://fliara.eu/toolkit, the toolkit distils FLIARA’s findings into actionable guidance for policymakers, funders, and rural change-makers.
The event left participants with a clear message: while challenges remain, there are growing opportunities for women to lead innovation in rural areas. By building visibility, confidence, and connections, projects like FLIARA are laying the groundwork for a more inclusive rural future — one in which women are not just participants but leaders.