Rural Scotland in Focus 2016 report launches

The SRUC Rural Policy Centre has launched its Rural Scotland in Focus 2016 report.

The report provides a fast-track to up-to-date evidence and commentary on key topics of rural and national importance, in order to inform policy, practice and research.

Rural Scotland in Focus 2016 is the fourth report in the series, and was launched at an event in Edinburgh on 29 November attended by over 90 people.

The report has three main sections: 

• Section 1: focuses on changing land management in the agriculture, estates and forestry sectors (written by Steven Thomson, Dr Rob McMorran and Professor Davy McCracken) 
• Section 2: focuses on reviewing evidence about the characteristics of rural Scotland’s economies beyond the land-based sector and highlights where there are gaps in our evidence (written by Dr Jane Atterton) 
• Section 3: reviews community empowerment policies from 1999-2016, and discusses the need for data to underpin on-going assessments of whether, where and how these policies deliver (written by Professor Sarah Skerratt). 

You can download several documents from the SRUC website including the summary brochure, the full report and the individual sections.