Questions about RRL, learning and collaboration

RRL stands for Regenerative Rural Living. The RRL platform connects learning about land with planning rural living and long-term care. Explore a place, develop your plans for land, housing and money, and keep sources, decisions and observations together.

RRL EDU adds learning about productive and edible forests. You can start with a question about the land, before you have a project. Read more about learning with RRL.

No. RRL checks your plans against its own reading of the rules, which is not an official legal standard, and says for each check: no problems found, problems found, not yet checkable, for the authority, or not applicable. The câmara and the other authorities decide. Every answer keeps its evidence and source.

The first rules are written for Portugal, and are marked as not an official legal standard. You can still describe land elsewhere and plan on it, but RRL cannot check it against local rules yet.

RRL EDU helps you observe a place, understand options and prepare a small trial. The first material covers productive and edible forests, with examples from dry Mediterranean landscapes. Learning methods are optional.

The reading material is a public draft in six languages; specialist review is pending. When the edition is available, Learning in the menu opens the catalogue. Reading needs no project. Saving personal work or contributing content requires the appropriate access. See RRL EDU.

No. “Not known yet, because…” is a real answer. RRL shows who can fill each gap (you, an engineer or the câmara), so you know whom to ask for what.

Yes, and you still need them: RRL does not replace the architect or the engineer. Invite your architect into the project. You design the house in RRL’s house design tool, in 3D, and your architect can download it as an IFC model for their own drawing program. A house you already have can be described from its papers.

Yes. With an account, you can use Find land to keep a private search dossier before you have a project. Record what you want, save places you are considering and add details as you learn more. You do not need an official parcel number to begin.

In Find land, you record your plans, budget and requirements, then compare places using details such as asking price, stated area and location. Keep sellers’ claims, supporting documents and open questions together. Missing information stays visible. A place matching your preferences does not establish permission to live or build there.

The people invited into it, and the platform administrators who run RRL. The exact location of your land is never shown publicly; a câmara you invite as an observer sees it, another observer only if you allow it. Others see what the project shares: a link to a building guide, a proposal you hand over, or what is sent to a Lab of the federation it is linked to. The service providers that run RRL also handle the data; the privacy notice names each one. You can download what RRL keeps about you and ask for it to be erased. Some records stay, such as the audit log and a proposal already handed over.

RRL helps you collect maps, documents and answers about your intended use of that place. It keeps a seller’s statement separate from an expert assessment or an official decision. Ask the câmara and your adviser to clarify what applies to your specific plan. A listing, a map or a favourable result in RRL is not permission to build.

RRL’s regular functions are free, including planning, budgeting, funding preparation and RRL EDU. You do not need a subscription or a donation to use them. The free model includes one project of your own and collaboration on one other.

You can have one project of your own and collaborate by invitation on at most one other project. For further collaboration, contact us to discuss the scope and terms. Professional use may involve a charge, agreed in advance; there is no standard tariff.

No. You can use the regular functions, including funding preparation and RRL EDU, without AI. AI support is planned as an optional paid extra. Its price, usage allowance and payment terms have not yet been set.

Donations are voluntary and are intended to be possible as one-off or monthly contributions. The links under Support RRL currently open Stripe’s sandbox. These are test payments: no real money is transferred. Any paid AI or professional use requires separate terms agreed in advance.

For professional use of RRL or collaboration beyond the free project allowance, contact us to agree the scope and any costs. There is no standard tariff. Advice or work by an architect, engineer or other independent professional is agreed and paid for separately. Inviting them into your project does not include their time.

The funder or the authority decides on eligibility and awards. The professional responsible assesses the parts that require their expertise. RRL helps you prepare and organise your request; using RRL does not guarantee funding.

You can keep using the free functions without donating or using AI. You can manage or cancel a monthly test contribution through Stripe’s test portal when that link is available, or by contacting the cooperative. The contribution terms explain cancellation and future real payments. If you leave RRL, you can download your data and request deletion as described in the privacy notice. Some records, such as the audit log and a proposal already handed over, are retained.

RRL helps organise costs, funding sources, evidence and reports for a conversation with a funder. Eligibility and awards remain with the funder.

A possible joint pilot would agree a new phase of learning, testing and measurement, with its own scope and budget. Policy relevance does not establish municipal participation, a grant or permission to build. Collaboration describes the proposal.

An RRL Living Lab brings together a place, the people who live there or care for it, and the partners involved. Residents and community groups, professionals and businesses, researchers and educators, and public authorities could work together to try ways of living that support land restoration. The people affected help shape the questions and the work.

RRL Living Lab is our own term. It draws on Syntrociety’s definition of a Syntropic Living Lab and the European Living Lab approach. The Lab includes the land, people and their cooperation; the RRL platform helps them organise the information.

The pilot vision explains the proposed approach. There is no confirmed municipal pilot yet.

There is no fixed partnership or confirmed municipal pilot yet. RRL proposes cooperation between residents, professionals, researchers and public authorities around a place and shared questions. The participants would first agree their roles, time, costs and use of information.

Collaboration explains how each group could take part. The pilot vision describes how they could learn and work together.

No. You can begin your own project file and invite the people needed for your questions. Residents and community groups, professionals and businesses, researchers and educators, and public authorities are the four groups that could cooperate in an RRL Living Lab. They do not all need to join before you can use the platform.

A joint pilot would require separate agreements with its participants. Using RRL does not automatically make a municipality or researcher a partner. See the RRL Living Lab definition.

Your contribution to an RRL Living Lab would depend on your role.

• Residents and neighbours share local knowledge, questions and observations.
• Professionals agree on the work, costs and responsibilities.
• Researchers help choose feasible measurements and explain the results.
• Public authorities identify a contact person and clarify what falls within their powers.

Participants would agree on their time and tasks beforehand. Collaboration describes the proposed approach; it is not an existing partnership.

Before an RRL Living Lab pilot begins, the participants would agree on the place and the questions they want to investigate, roles, time, costs and support. They would also decide who may use which data, how to record the starting situation and when to evaluate together. The agreements should cover what happens to the data and care for the land when the pilot ends. No municipal pilot has been agreed yet. The pilot vision: five possible steps explains how those agreements could guide the work.

Sharing knowledge is voluntary. Free use of RRL does not require you to publish your project or share your knowledge. RRL can keep a source, its author and its context with a contribution. Selected knowledge can be shared through the existing permissions and editorial process; private project data is not automatically public.

A programme to record local experience with residents, learners and researchers still needs participants, consent and agreed methods. An account or a recorded experience does not make someone an recognised expert.

First record the starting situation with dated sources and observations. Then choose feasible measurements with the relevant expert, and record later observations alongside the measures carried out. Keep unknowns and disappointing results too. RRL can organise this record; a change in measurements alone does not prove its cause. Land recovery needs longer monitoring than a short pilot.

The pilot vision: learning from evidence explains how to keep observations, targets and uncertainties separate.

The intended benefits are less administrative work, better-informed choices and more effective care for land. Those benefits have not been established by an impact evaluation.

A pilot should compare time, costs and outcomes with what would have happened otherwise. Ecological effects need baseline measurements and follow-up, including deterioration and the contribution of others. A plan, an activity or an estimate is not measured restoration.