Within the framework of the AVANT-UV Chair, promoted by the Direcció General de l’Agència Valenciana Antidespoblament (Directorate- General of the Valencian Anti-depopulation Agency), de Secretaria Autonòmica de Promoció Institucional i Cohesió Territorial (Autonomous Secretariat of Institutional Promotion and Territorial Cohesion), and the Inter-university Institute for Local Development (IIDL), this conference was held to reflect on depopulation in general terms, and, especially, measures to address this issue. “Differentiated taxation as an instrument of positive discrimination has strong detractors but, it is also true that it is increasingly obvious that it is achievable and necessary.  And this will be the core element of the seminar, to reflect regarding the viability of a differentiated taxation for the rural areas with problems or in danger of becoming depopulated”.

The seminar was aimed specifically to public authorities at all administrative levels, from regional government to local administration, including the elected officials or members of municipal corporations, as well as the provincial councils themselves.  It was also opened to all interested in how to face the challenge of depopulation in our rural areas, to actors linked to Grups d’Acció Local (Local Action Groups) and, in general, to any citizen of the Comunitat Valenciana.

The organizers intended an active participation of the attendees, through various group dynamics and presentation of results and deliberations.  All this after two keynote speeches that served to put the day into context.  First, Professor Luis Antonio Sáez intervened With a lecture on “La despoblación y sus estrategias, a debate” (Depopulation and its strategies under debate), and, after this lecture, Professor  José Antonio Hercé (member of the Southern Sparsely Populated Areas network) presented the main results of his work “Una fiscalidad diferenciada para el progreso de los territorios despoblados en España” (A differentiated taxation for the progress of uninhabited territories in Spain). Prior to these two lectures, the seminar was inaugurated by the president of the Valencian Provincial Council, Antoni F. Gaspar; the general director of the Agència Valenciana Antidespoblament (Valencian Anti-depopulation Agency), Jeanette Segarra; the general director of Desenvolupament Rural (Rural Development), David Torres; the vice-Principal of the Office for Territorial Projection and Participation of the Universitat de València, Jorge Hermosilla; and the co-directors of the AVANT Chair at the Universitat de València, and members of the IIDL's UDERVAL Team, professors Javier Esparcia and Jaime Escribano.  The closure of the seminar was run by Professor María Dolores Pitarch, director of the Inter-university Institute for Local Development (IIDL) of the Universitat de València.

The conference took place on Monday 14th October at 9 a.m. in classrooms B3 and B4 of the Inter-university Institute for Local Development  of the Tarongers Campus of the Universitat de València.  Seminar registration was free and should be requested by sending an email to catedra.avant@gmail.com.