Definitions of rural areas tend to rely on population density or size. They do not provide sufficient insight into the dynamics, driving force and fluidity of the contemporary diverse rural-urban relationships and identities that characterize the countryside across Europe. Despite the growing recognition that rural areas are diverse and that typologies should better reflect the identity of such territories, the lack of fine-scale data hinders such innovation. Deviating from an updated conceptualization of rurality based on the multidimensional nature of contemporary rural-urban interrelationships and interdependencies, GRANULAR will generate new insights for characterizing rural diversity based on a multi-actor and interdisciplinary approach. Based on insights from Multi-Actor Labs, it will generate new datasets using a wide range of methods and primary data such as remote sensing, crowdsourced data, mobile phone data and web scraping. This data will then be combined with a range of existing institutional data to derive relevant rural community indicators for realizing the Long Term Rural Vision (LTVRA) and to measure resilience, well-being, quality of life and attractiveness. The GRANULAR project will make it possible to create a rural compass that takes into account the factors affecting rural communities and their functional characteristics, informs policy makers and rural actors for the design of tailor-made rural policies. After ensuring scalability of results, datasets, data visualizations and other tools will be directly available on a dedicated platform designed by and for rural actors.