Giving Rural Actors Novel data and re-Useable tools to Lead public Action in Rural areas

Project Information

GRANULAR

Grant agreement ID: 101061068

DOI

10.3030/101061068

EC signature date 7 June 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 30 September 2026

Funded under

• Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Total cost

€ 6 633 494,72

EU contribution

€ 6 633 494,72

Coordinated by

CENTRE INTERNATIONAL DE HAUTES ETUDES AGRONOMIQUES MEDITERRANEENNES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - GRANULAR (Giving Rural Actors Novel data and re-Useable tools to Lead public Action in Rural areas)

Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

EU rural areas face significant challenges. They house 30% of the EU population across over 80% of its territory, yet they experience demographic decline, climate pressures, and economic and social changes. The EU's Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas recognizes these challenges and calls for better data and tailored policies to support rural transitions. Current definitions of rural areas rely mainly on population density and similar indicators. This approach fails to capture the complex relationships between rural and urban areas or the diversity of rural territories across Europe. Without adequate data at local scales, policymakers cannot design policies that match the needs of different rural communities. GRANULAR addresses this gap by developing a new understanding of rural diversity, acknowledging the multidimensionality and complexity of rural areas, thus contributing to support their just digital, economic and ecological transitions. The project works with 16 rural territories across the EU and Associated Countries through two types of Multi-Actor Labs: Living Labs co-create and test new data collection methods to support local policy decisions, while Replication Labs validate these methods across different contexts.

The project combines multiple data sources—remote sensing, crowd-sourced information, social media data, and institutional statistics—to create novel datasets at both local and EU-wide scales. These datasets inform indicators that help measure accessibility, resilience, well-being, or attractiveness in rural areas. One main output is the Rural Compass, a framework that helps policymakers and rural actors understand the factors affecting their communities and design policies through rural proofing. The project delivers a spatial-geographical data interface and policy-oriented data visualisation (interactive viewer) through the GRANULAR Digital Platform, ensuring direct uptake by local authorities, regional bodies, and EU-level policymakers. Local authorities will be able to use GRANULAR's data and tools to refine their action plans linked to the Rural Vision. Regional and national policymakers will be able to access EU-wide datasets to better understand rural diversity when designing support programs.

Social sciences and humanities play essential roles throughout the project. SSH researchers facilitate the multi-actor approach, ensuring that local voices shape data collection methods. They contribute new scientific understanding of rural diversity and analyse how rural communities build resilience. SSH disciplines also examine rural well-being across territories and facilitate dialogue between policymakers, practitioners, and rural communities about policy responses.
By mid-2026, the project will have developed new methods to produce datasets that can capture rural diversity, generated analyses on rural challenges and transitions, tested data collection methods across 16 territories, and delivered a methodology for rural proofing building on the Rural Compass for ongoing use by rural actors and policymakers.

Website: https://www.ruralgranular.eu/

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

GRANULAR has delivered:

- Frameworks, tools and analyses
o Developed the Rural Diversity Compass (D2.2) to map multiple dimensions of rurality
o Designed a Climate Neutrality Framework for rural planning and monitoring (D4.1)
o Advanced the concept of Socio-Economic Resilience through gender-sensitive analysis of labour markets (D4.2)
o Defined territorial typologies (D4.6)
o Reviewed data and conceptual approaches for food systems, well-being, and rural attractiveness

- Data screening, benchmarking, and local collection guidelines
o Catalogued existing datasets relevant to rural diversity across Europe (D3.1)
o Benchmarked data sources’ performance and cost (D3.2)
o Produced guidelines for local data collection and use at each planning stage (D6.2)

- Novel datasets, indicators, and tools for policy design
o Generated new datasets on accessibility using OSM data, mobility using Facebook data, on land use/cover using satellite images
o Conducted a gap analysis with DG AGRI to identify missing indicators for rural action
o Developed a rural proofing framework (D5.1) then validated it on local policies (D5.2)
o Co-created 7 Practice Abstracts (D6.3) summarising Living Lab results and embedding lessons learned into refined indicators

- Iterative testing and validation
o Engaged 16 Multi-Actor Labs to test data collection methods, refine indicators, and validate tools
o Applied innovative methods to generate data that inform local policy decisions

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The Rural Compass establishes the theoretical foundation to capture rural diversity. By translating this conceptual framework into step-by-step checks, the GRANULAR rural proofing methodology provides practical guidance for policy orientation, thereby helping EU, national, and local actors design evidence-based, place-based policies.
Existing rural data have been catalogued in a repository (https://platform.ruralgranular.eu/) and evaluated for performance and cost. New data-collection methods have been tested for accuracy and checked for replication and scaling potential. Sources include remote sensing, crowd-sourced, social-media, web-scraped, and institutional data.
New indicators track trends, drivers, and resilience across digital, economic, and ecological dimensions. 5 thematic reports and datasets cover climate neutrality, socio-economic resilience, food systems, well-being, and attractiveness. The project also offers operational typologies for EU rural areas.
Guidelines for rural proofing were drafted using the Rural Compass and tested in Multi-Actor Labs. Findings will inform recommendations for tailored rural policies.
16 Living Labs and Replication Labs co-developed and validated data, indicators, and tools in different settings. This confirms that methods work across contexts.
A Knowledge Transfer Accelerator and a platform host data, indicators, and decision tools for rural actors and policymakers.