Highlands and Islands Enterprise: Managing Depopulation with Long Range Lights

Abstract

Highlands and Islands territory is a region in Northern Scotland, characterized for its sparse population, its remote location, and its rural settlements (although it is not a typical rural economy). During the last 50 years, the region has experienced a process which has supposed, against all odds, the reduction of the emigration (even its increase in some certain areas). To reach that goal, some important aspects have changed since that period to the present day. Some of them are the economy diversification, with the increasing importance of sectors like industry and services; the development and improvement of transport and infrastructure, allowing all the territory to be connected; the availability of higher education, that brings the opportunity to students to stay in the area even if they want higher education; and the commitment with population, especially with young people, of bringing the same opportunities along the territory to develop their careers and their life projects. In that process has contributed Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which has focused on the support of business, the support of communities, and the support of the relationships between both. And all this has been possible thanks to the proactive population. But, even this significantly improved in the past decades, there are still challenges and weakness to face in order to reach the same opportunities as the rest of the country.