Urban-Rural Knowledge Transfer - A Theoretical and Methodological Approach

Knowledge and its use are inseparable elements of human life. Regardless of the place of residence, type of economic activity or economic system, man benefits from the knowledge accumulated over time and uses it to achieve the desired goals. Knowledge is an attribute of the inhabitants of a given region and is identified with the overall information that its people and institutions possess, including the ability to use it. This paper discusses the theoretical basis of knowledge transfer with a particular focus on urban-rural relations and identifies research methods used in knowledge transfer studies. The following sections discuss the issues of general knowledge transfer theory, the challenges of urban-rural knowledge transfer research, and the methodology of the study. The paper uses the preliminary results of pilot work within the framework of the research project “Rural-urban knowledge transfer - models of interdependencies”, which aims to study interdependencies in rural-urban knowledge transfer on the example of a dozen villages in Poland characterized by different functional structure and location outside the zone of influence of large urban agglomerations.