The depopulation of vast areas of the Spanish territory was consolidated as one of the major challenges of our time. With the intention to analyse and give you the response from an interdisciplinary cooperation, is born DESP-OB, a state network that analyzes the territorial, social and economic effects of the challenging demographic. The initiative is coordinated from the USC by Rubén C. Lois, director of the Institute of Studies and Development of Galicia (IDEGA). ‘There existed the need for a research proposal which unificated the specializations in economics, geography and media”, exposes.
The loss of population is one of the phenomena most relevant to the current Galicia and Spain, and the so-called depopulation of Spain involves changes in the structures demographic, from the abandonment of rural to the entry of young people in these spaces. Among the main objectives of the project is the creation of an observatory on the depopulation, conceived as a space of compilation and analysis of data from very diverse backgrounds. “We want to rely on interviews and archives that reflect the voice of the people who live in rural areas,” explains Lois.
DESP-OB aspires to generate knowledge useful for decision-making in public in the framework of the demographic challenging. The project includes the elaboration of recommendations aimed at the social transfer and the improvement of policies. “The government decisions must solve concrete problems. In the areas where there are processes of abandonment there are consequences such as an increased risk of forest fires”, points out the director of the IDEGA. In this sense, the project intends to provide scientific evidence that contributes to devise strategies that could be the most effective against the depopulation, integrating the territorial analysis with proposals aimed at sustainability and the demographic balance.
DESP-OB is integrated by eleven research centers of several universities and public bodies that work in a coordinated way to provide an integral vision of the phenomenon. With DESP-OB, the IDEGA reinforces its role as a point of reference in the study of the dynamics of territorial and regional development, placing galician research in the center of the state debate on the demographic challenge.
DESP-OB is one of the initiatives selected by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the State Agency of Research in the call 2024 of the program “Research Networks”, in the framework of the State Program of Transfer and Collaboration of the State Plan of Scientific Research, technology and Innovation 2024-2027.
