Dear all,

we are about to end one of the most difficult years in our lives. The pandemic is affecting our families, our routines and our professional expectations. In the Rural NEET Youth Network, we have been doing our best to adapt to these challenging times, opening up opportunities for collaboration, publication and Action dissemination.

Even under so hard circumstances, we managed to prepare our first deliverables. WG1 presented 14 national reports about the situation of rural NEETs in different member countries. WG2 produced a manual for the classification of intervention best-practices with rural NEETs. These documents are the baseline of the upcoming Rural NEET Youths Observatory, our ultimate target to be delivered in 2023. We all know how much work many members invested in producing these documents.  As a Chair, I would like to show my appreciation for these members’ commitment and effort.

We all hope 2021 increases our collaboration and visibility as a community gathered around knowledge and networking goals. For the time being, and while the pandemic is still a reality, we are trying to move forward. Very recently, the Action MC approved a budget revision for the second Grant Period. That revision will enable us to support our Autumn call activities. This call includes a broad range of dissemination opportunities. Fortunately, many of these calls were very well welcomed by the members. Also WGs management teams are preparing several activities. A summary of this is provided in this newsletter.

From my side, I hope that in 2021 we are finally allowed to come together to discuss, share, agree and disagree and build together our goals as COST Actions are supposed to so.

Above a beyond that, I wish you personally all the achievements and happiness in the new year.

Francisco Simões
Action Chair
Lisbon Online Conference is coming, on the 28th of January 2021. The conference will be dedicated to  Please, register and participate. The conference includes a panel intitled “How can rural education and training systems address rural youths challenges?” with two keynote speakers: Ingrid Schoon (University College of London, UK) and Michael Corbett (Acadia University, Canada). The program also includes a panel presenting the main findings from our Action deliverables as well as several parallel sessions. Please consult our website and register ASAP!
Autumn call in numbers

Our Action opened up 5 calls for dissemination and collaboration activities, in late October.

Two calls are dedicated to publications in special issues.
One of our special issues is intitled “Lessons on Building more Sustainable Rural Societies: Youth and Mobility”. The special issue is being managed by Slaven Gasparovic (Croatia) and Òscar Prieto-Flores (Spain). Seven papers were collected in the call and are going to be assessed before being submitted to Sustainability, a Q2 journal.
The other call is intitled “Challenges Associated with European Rural NEETs Youth Inclusion: Characterising Empowerment, Education and Employment Intervention Pathways”. The special issue is being managed by Paul Flynn (Ireland) and Emre Erdogan (Turkey). Nine papers were collected in the call and are going to be assessed before being submitted to Youth & Society, a Q1 journal.
A National Dissemination Events call was also opened, to fund meetings at a national level to address two main goals: (a) to promote stakeholders involvement (researchers, policy-makers, professionals); and (b) to ensure quick and meaningful dissemination of RNYN first deliverables of both Action Working Groups (WG). The deadline for submission for this call was extended to the 15th of January, for meetings occurring until the 30th of June. Until now, 5 events proposals were submitted and assessment of all proposals will be made as proposals come in and until no later than thr 31st of January 2021.
Aside, ITC Conference Grants and STSM calls were also open, with several limitations attached, due to the pandemic.

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