GRANULAR (Giving Rural Actors Novel data and re-Useable tools to Lead public Action in Rural areas) is a newly awarded project under the Horizon Europe programme. This four-year project will generate new insights for characterising rural diversity based on a multi-actor and interdisciplinary approach.
Insights from multi-actor labs will generate novel datasets using a wide range of methods and primary data, such as remote sensing, crowd-sourced data, mobile phone data and web scraping. This will then be combined with a variety of existing institutional data to derive indicators relevant to rural communities for the implementation of the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas (LTVRA), to measure resilience, well-being, quality of life and attractiveness.
The project will create a Rural Compass, which takes into account the factors affecting rural communities and their functional characteristics, informing policy-makers and rural actors for the design of tailored rural policies. This novel conceptual and methodological approach will provide a comprehensive insight into the multiple factors and drivers that impact rural areas, accounting for their diversity.
It will directly support concrete policies, by informing rural action with the opportunities and requirements in terms of data-collection methods and indicator development to enhance and support the co-creation and co-learning with multiple actors in rural areas.
After ensuring the scalability of the results, datasets, data visualisation and other tools will be made available on a dedicated platform designed by, and for, rural actors and rural policy-makers. Led by CIHEAM Montpellier, GRANULAR gathers 23 partners (academic institutes, international organisations, NGOs, rural networks, and local authorities), including many partners from SHERPA and other H2020 projects, such as DESIRA, POLIRURAL and ROBUST.