Experimenting for long-term transformation. Key insidhts into 20 years of German pilot scheme for innovative rural public service and infrastructure provision

In a context of highly heterogeneous development prospects for rural areas in the German Federal Republic, maintaining public services and infrastructure in peripheral locations is facing major challenges. Since the 1990s, a number of nationwide and publicly-funded pilot schemes have experimented with innovative approaches for the long-term transformation of the way public services and infrastructure are provided in the countryside. Nevertheless, the continuity of these approaches often turns out to be problematic. This paper analyses a series of pilot schemes as instruments for territorial development and presents new findings at multiple levels for enhancing their performance.