ABSTRACT
Rural businesses from multiple sectors make an important contribution to growth and productivity and are affected by wider challenges that impact on local and national growth strategies. Rural firms experience practical challenges concerning the availability of business premises, planning regulations, access to support, recruitment of skilled staff, as well as lack of innovative technologies. In this chapter we consider innovation barriers and experiences in rural areas and introduce an exemplar case study of ‘rural enterprise hubs’ in England. This chapter examines the process of innovation in a rural context and how rural enterprise hubs contribute to rural innovation.
