Imagine trying to describe a whole forest by only counting the trees; you miss the wildlife, the soil, and the weather. This project does the same for rural areas, moving beyond simple population counts to use mobile phone data and satellite images. It creates a digital map that shows what actually makes a rural town attractive or resilient, helping leaders make smarter decisions.
Current rural planning relies on outdated population density metrics, ignoring the actual movement and needs of people. This leads to poorly targeted policies and inefficient infrastructure investment.
A digital platform featuring a spatial-geographical data interface and a 'Rural Compass' tool for visualizing rural diversity and accessibility.
If you are a regional development agency dealing with demographic decline — this project developed a Rural Compass that identifies factors affecting attractiveness. This allows you to target investments in areas with the highest potential for growth based on 16 tested territories.
If you are a network provider dealing with inefficient infrastructure rollout in sparse areas — this project developed a spatial-geographical data interface using mobile phone and unconventional data. This helps you pinpoint actual usage patterns rather than relying on outdated population density maps.
If you are a delivery service dealing with unpredictable rural accessibility — this project developed indicators to measure accessibility and resilience. You can use these datasets to optimize route planning and service hubs in diverse rural territories.
Based on available project data, pricing is not mentioned; however, the results are intended to be available on a dedicated platform for rural actors.
Yes, the project specifically focuses on the up-scalability of results and datasets to be used at both local and EU-wide scales.
Based on available project data, specific licensing terms are not provided, but the project aims for direct uptake by local and regional authorities via a digital platform.
The system combines unconventional data like web-scraping and mobile phone logs with existing institutional statistics to create a more complete picture.
The project period runs from 2022-10-01 to 2026-09-30, indicating the tools are being refined through 2026.
The consortium is heavily research-driven, featuring 11 universities and 7 research institutes. With 26 partners across 13 countries, it has strong geographic coverage but low industrial penetration, with only 1 industry partner and 1 SME (a 4% industry ratio). This suggests the output is currently a high-science tool requiring a commercial partner to bridge the gap to market.
Contact the Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Mediterraneennes in France.
Contact us to connect with the GRANULAR consortium for early access to the Rural Compass data interface.
