The four-year transnational GRANULAR project, funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe program, has reached its halfway point. 

The Department of Information Technology continues to actively collaborate with 22 other organizations from 13 European countries on this multidisciplinary project, which aims to create new data sets, tools and methods for a better understanding of rural areas. An online meeting of the project's Ethics Committee was held on Friday, November 15, 2024. As the name suggests, the main topic of the meeting was ethical approaches and recommendations in scientific research work, focusing primarily on data work and its limitations from the perspective of personal data protection. Topics such as GDPR, data sensitivity and the related anonymization of data, their storage and mandatory archiving during the project were discussed. This limitation in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and the related AI Act were also an interesting topic.

The project is moving into its second half and its performance to date will be evaluated in detail during a full-day online meeting as part of the General Assembly of all members planned for November 19, 2024. 

More information about the project can be found on its website. https://www.ruralgranular.eu.