According to the "Impact of demographic change", by 2050, 30% of the population will be aged 65 years or older, while people in working age will decrease to less than 2 per ageing person. An older Europe with a smaller workforce will likely increase pressure on public budgets forced to dedicate 26.6% of GDP to ageing cost by 2070. Rural population is on average older than in urban areas and will continue to shrink from the current 25% of population. Seniors are also more likely to be digitally excluded and to experience barriers when accessing goods and services that are increasingly provided online (García Faroldi, 2022; Valokivi et al., 2023). Digital exclusion reduces opportunities for active and healthy ageing, including social and economic participation (Arroyo-Menéndez et al., 2022). An age-friendly design and upgrade of digital services in rural areas needs to be ensure, in order to support older adults' social participation (Fischl et al., 2020). Digital technologies can assist in learning new skills, facilitate social interactions, foster independent and autonomous living, and improve the management and delivery of health and social care services for ageing populations (Bansal & Choudhary, 2024; Lindberg & Lundgren, 2022, Rivero Jiménez et al., 2022).

Rural population across Europe also suffer from a higher poverty rate and one of the highest rural unemployment rates (Eurostat, 2024). Low education outcomes, not sufficient acquisition of skills and regional gap in educational attainment level remain a major growth impediment in these areas. Furthermore, adults in rural areas encounter barriers that prevent them from participating in educational processes (Lindsay et al., 2003). In 2019, people from rural areas had the lowest level of digital skills among adults. Inadequate skills may prevent their participation in several training programmes offered, make it difficult to get informed about what is available and challenging for education providers to reach them. Improving the competence of educators and other adult education staff in rural areas will create and promote learning opportunities among the population from rural areas, fostering the circular educational system between adult educators and rural target groups mediate by Local Action Groups (LAGs) and 

This paper describes the first results of a project which focus its attention on European LAGs to establish them as the conjunction ring for transferring innovative digital skills from Adult Education sector to low-skilled adults and seniors in rural areas, targeting three main outcomes: active ageing, digital skills and competence, and tackling geographical remoteness. To achieve these objectives, the project is implementing the following activities: the creation of a new professional profile to be established in regional repertoires and dedicated to the promotion of seniors and low-skilled adult's inclusion in rural areas; the realization of a training toolkit and course for LAGs officers; and the realization of a guideline to outline formats and experiences to the wider European Rural Development community.

This project is being developed in 3 phases. The first phase was devoted to develop, test and promote a new European professional profile of specialist within the wider area of Adult Education, dedicated to the enhancement of digital active participation of Seniors in rural areas by enhancing their digital information access, literacy, social involvement and active belonging to the community. For this purpose, questionnaires were provided to LAGs and focus groups were held to determine the training needs of adults in these rural areas. During the phase 2, a training pathway to empower future e-Rural specialist were created for LAGs trainers, focused on five topics: Digital literacy, Digital public services and finances, e-Health, Digital sustainability, and Digital engagement in rural areas. The phase 3 of this project is committed to transfer the knowledge and skills acquired over the training session by LAGs officers towards low-skilled adults and seniors of rural areas. Three sets of questionnaires will be implemented to measure the level of achievement and quality of the training: a questionnaire evaluating LAGs officers experience in delivering sustainable and digital competences to low-skilled adults in rural areas; a questionnaire evaluating low-skilled adults experience, interest and skills appraisal after the attendance over the local pilot, their satisfaction and the level of skills exploitation for the connection with the labour market; and a questionnaire evaluating seniors in rural areas experience, level of involvement, satisfaction about skills acquired, feeling of enhancement and upgrade of connections with the rural opportunities from a cultural and educational point of view.

Improving the competence of educators and other adult education staff by establishing a new professional profile devoted to the digital inclusion of low-skilled adults and seniors in rural areas will provide them the digital skills to participate in social life and making rural areas more appealing and inclusive. The intergenerational pedagogy underpins the circular system between adult education institution, LAGs, low-skilled adults and seniors. The results show that this methodology provide low-skilled adults digital skills to be reinvested for their upskilling pathways and make their set of competences updated and appealing for labour market; it provides also seniors in rural areas the digital keys to acquire digital literacy, digital security skills and most of all the digital strategies to connect with the cultural and life-long learning training provision in rural areas, becoming the beneficiaries of the intergenerational educational circular system.

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