Dr Chris Curran, professor of political science and sociology at NUI Galway, has recently embarked on the Irish section of an EU-funded project - Policies and Young People in Rural Development. Universities in Germany, France, Portugal, Finland and Austria are also participating.

"The assumption is that young people (aged 16 to 25 years) have certain types of difficulties in acquiring jobs in rural areas. We will be looking at the role policies play in encouraging young people to get jobs in rural areas. We will be examining every single initiative in the State that might effect job opportunities in rural areas," he says. Included among these are FAS initiatives, Youthstart and education policy. "The assumption of our research is that policy decisions have particular effects for young people in rural areas as compared with urban areas."

West Connemara has been chosen as the study site for the second phase of the project, since, says Curran, it is the location for a number of innovative projects, including the Connemara West Community Centre, which boasts a partnership with Galway/Mayo IT, and the Community Project Forum, which has supported BIM initiatives to attract young people to the shellfish industry. By next October, researchers will be ready to embark on the main part of the research, which involves talking to the people who are involved in the delivery of services to young people and to a sample of young people themselves. "We will be using focus groups and interviewing a number of young people on a series of topics to get their views on their employment prospects, how they see their futures and the policies they may like to see implemented."

The results of the project will be included in a comparative European study of young people and the policies which affect them. Recommendations will inform future EU policy on the issue.

The issues which face rural communities are "incredibly varied", Curran notes. "Some are faced with the problem of too much expansion and the fact that they are becoming dormitory zones for the city. In more remote areas, depopulation and ageing populations are of major concern."

However, local area development programmes and the LEADER programme have had a huge impact. "In my view," Curran says, "quite a lot of progress has been made over the last 10 years."