The FLIARA (Female-led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas) project aims to create a European-wide ecosystem, which supports women-led innovative practices in farming and rural areas. The project supports rural women by creating an improved ecosystem for innovation, which will highlight their successes, serve as a source of information and inspiration, link them to important players in the field, increase their visibility in institutional decision-making contexts at the national and international levels, and help them develop their capacity and skills so they can continue leading or begin leading innovative practices. Understanding how women engage in innovative sustainable practices on farms and in rural areas will be crucial to opening up new opportunities for rural women throughout the EU. To fill these knowledge gaps a comprehensive co-created conceptual framework has been developed. Deliverable 1.1 is divided into four parts to clearly depict the role of the conceptual framework throughout the life of the FLIARA project. The four parts include:

Part One: situates the conceptual framework within the broader contexts of the FLIARA project, outlining the key facets of the project, such as, why we need a conceptual framework, before addressing the context for women-led innovations in rural areas.

Part Two: introduces the six perspectives that were collectively selected to ground the Conceptual Framework.

Part Three: identifies the various strategies to be employed during the life of the FLIARA project to examine and also to promote female-led innovations in rural areas for gender equality and sustainable rural development.

Part Four: reflects on the process and production of 30 concept notes. To meet the project objectives and its multi-actor approach, a co-creative and collaborative approach was adopted to develop concept notes that informed the conceptual framework and the Knowledge Review (D1.2). The individual concepts notes form Appendix A. A Glossary of Terms (GoT) was collated and is referenced within the document. It has its own place in Appendix B.

The document commences with the following Executive Summary, which consists of key take home messages from each of the four parts of the document.