## 7 Conclusions  
This scoping review noted that academic literature continues to approach the two aspects of the digital divide: access and use. In the first case, there is a greater focus on issues related to the role and activity of public authorities in the design and implementation of policies and programs, than on technical issues, where satellite-related technologies are found unanimity, as well as an inclination to explore solutions linked to local specificities and the participation of the supplier companies and social agents of the territory. Additionally, in terms of use, recommendations of varying spectrum, both social, educational and economic, are detected, with a common insistence on the empowerment of rural populations and the need to prevent resistance to the use of technologies by appealing to the resilience of these populations. Regarding the specific recommendations that can have a broad and rapid impact, essential in the current pandemic situation, the following ideas stand out from the qualitative analysis carried out among the selected sources, if there is a political will to carry them out:  
* R1: Linking the improvement of connectivity to the dynamization of new business models and to the diversification of activities in the rural environment. * R2: Ensuring the coherence of European, national, and regional initiatives. * R3: Prioritizing the \"speed of implementation\" variable to ensure access to state-of-the-art technologies. * R4: Exploiting the potential contribution of niche providers to broadband development. * R5: Designing flexible training actions, adapted to the needs and circumstances of teachers who must deploy them in the areas of interest. * R6: Optimizing the use of available resources, such as those in rural libraries. * R7: Planning specific initiatives for vulnerable groups. Finally, from the main findings and gaps identified, three lines of research and social intervention in the medium term are proposed:  
1. The evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of the national and regional public policies adopted in the last decade to reverse the reduction of the rural digital divide. 2. The analysis of the relationship between connectivity and economic development in the rural environment. In particular, it is interesting to explore and assess the effectivity of digital inclusion as a potential instrument to retain and attract population and slow down the depopulation process in isolated areas and districts with negative population growth rates. The existing literature lacks approaches that study the possible effects of overcoming the digital divide to reverse the depopulation and to promote the development of the rural world; while some authors argue that an ageing population can be a major obstacle to get the expected positive results. 3. The design and implementation of digital skills training programs specifically aimed at people living in the countryside to improve social communication processes in general, considered key to promote social leadership, rural empowerment, and resilience, and to enable innovative business initiatives. The Next Generation European Union, a recovery fund for 2021-2027 to reverse the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, approved by the European Council in its meeting of 17-21 July 2020, could be a great opportunity to implement the above recommendations and to promote the proposed lines of intervention by the academic literature because it presents a firm commitment to digital inclusion and the green deal. In this sense, bridging the rural digital divide must be a specific action of the territorial cohesion policies and the research and innovation program, via Horizon Europe. Conceptualization, M.-A.E.-N. and T.M.-N.; methodology, M.-A.G.-M.; software, T.M.-N.; validation, A.-I.N.-B. ; formal analysis, M.-A.E.-N.; investigation, M.-A.G.-M. and T.M.-N.; resources, M.-A.E.-N.; data curation, M.-A.G.-M. and T.M.-N.; writing--original draft preparation, M.-A.E.-N.; writing--review and editing, M.-A.G.-M. and A.-I.N.-B.