PoliRural+ — Bridging Rural and Urban Europe

PoliRural+ (Horizon Europe, GA 101136910, 2024–2026, coordinated by the Czech Technical University in Prague) helps rural and urban areas plan together. This knowledge base explains the project's method, its nine pilot regions, its tools and results — every claim traced to a public deliverable — and seeds a local GeoAI knowledge base for the Klatovsko region.

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Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction

What PoliRural+ is, what it commits to, and why it plans for rural-urban flows

• Rural-urban linkages — What are rural-urban linkages, and why does PoliRural+ plan around functional areas rather than administrative units?
• The PoliRural+ project — What is PoliRural+, and how does it extend its predecessor PoliRural?
• The seven objectives — What are the seven specific objectives of PoliRural+ and which two carry numeric targets?
• The EU policy context of PoliRural+ — Which EU frameworks must every PoliRural+ Regional Action Plan contribute to, according to D3.1?

Chapter 2: Rural-Urban Linkages

From fragmentation to foresight to Regional Action Plans

• Rural-urban fragmentation — What does rural-urban fragmentation mean in PoliRural+, and which barriers did the pilots report most often?
• The foresight framework — How does the PoliRural+ foresight framework (D3.1) turn a discussion about the future into an action plan?
• Regional Action Plans (RAPs) — What are the three phases of the D3.1 RAP methodology, and what three elements must the finished plan contain?
• Work packages — Which PoliRural+ work packages form the improvement loop, and which provide infrastructure services to the whole project?

Chapter 3: The Nine Pilots

Where PoliRural+ meets the ground: nine regions, nine Regional Action Plans, and how far each idea has got

• The network of nine pilots — What does each PoliRural+ pilot produce, and why does the project run nine different pilots instead of one?
• The County Monaghan pilot — What three interventions does the County Monaghan Regional Action Plan set out, and how far has each got?
• The Slovak pilot — What is the Slovak pilot trying to put into practice, and through which governance proposals?
• The Central Greece pilot — Which territory does the Greek pilot cover, and what does its Regional Action Plan prioritise?
• DASK island farming platform — What problem does DASK address on Kythera and Antikythera, and what does it combine?
• The Apulia pilot — Which instrument does the Apulia RAP put at the centre, and what does it aim to achieve by 2028?
• The Mallusjoki pilot — What is the Mallusjoki pilot building, and what does its Regional Action Plan aim for by 2028?
• Avoin-Map spatial tools — Which three services does Avoin-Map build for Mallusjoki, and how far had each got at mid-term?
• The Czech-Bavarian pilot — What is the Czech-Bavarian pilot trying to transfer across the border, and what is the status of the Klatovy hub?
• The Sierra y Mancha Conquense pilot — How does the Spanish pilot use cultural heritage, and what does its Regional Action Plan target by 2028?
• The Vidzeme pilot — What gap does the Vidzeme pilot address, and what does its Regional Action Plan propose to close it?
• The Malta and Gozo pilot — Why does the Malta RAP choose small enabling actions over structural reform, and what are those actions?

Chapter 4: GeoAI & JackDaw

Language models grounded in place: the JackDaw Beta and a local knowledge base for Klatovsko

• GeoAI: grounding language models in place — What does GeoAI add to a general-purpose language model, as PoliRural+ designs it?
• JackDaw, the PoliRural+ GeoAI agent — How does JackDaw choose the data for a question, and what limits its answers in the Beta release?
• From data to decisions, with provenance — What must a GeoAI answer carry before a planner can use it in a Regional Action Plan?
• JackDaw in the pilots — Which farm and adviser questions does JackDaw Beta support, and what did the pilots find limits its use?
• Copernicus Earth observation in PoliRural+ — How does Copernicus data reach JackDaw users in the Beta, and what is still being prepared?
• A local GeoAI knowledge base — What makes the Klatovsko knowledge base grounded, and how can people and AI agents reach it?
• Open geodata for Klatovsko — Why does a local knowledge base combine several open layers instead of relying on one map, and what must it check when it does?
• Replicating the local knowledge base — What is the workflow for replicating the Klatovsko knowledge base in another pilot region?

Chapter 5: Digital Tools: What They Do and How to Use Them

The PoliRural+ Beta platform component by component, with its real status and a step-by-step guide for each tool

• Which tool when — Which PoliRural+ tools support which steps of preparing a Regional Action Plan, and how does a pilot choose among them?
• The PoliRural+ tool ecosystem — Why is the PoliRural+ platform built as separate components rather than one application, and what connects them?
• The Multi-Actor Approach tool — What does the MAA tool add to the multi-actor approach, and how far is it in use?
• The PoliRural+ Advisor and RAG services — What makes the PoliRural+ Advisor different from asking a general chatbot, and where did testers see its limits?
• Vulture and MapWhiteboard — How do Vulture and MapWhiteboard differ in purpose and maturity?
• Rural attractiveness mapping — Why does the Czech-Bavarian innovation potential tool use a 1×1 km grid, and what does it combine?

Chapter 6: Food and Agriculture

Short food supply chains in four pilots, and what the open calls built for them

• Short food supply chains — According to the Apulia evidence, what holds short food supply chains back: producer willingness, or something else?
• Field2Fork AI Hub (Apulia) — What did Field2Fork AI Hub build for Foggia, and what kind of evidence does D6.3 report for it?
• LocalLinks.AI (Czech-Bavarian border) — What problem does LocalLinks.AI address, and what did it deliver?
• DASK on Kythera — What does the DASK project combine on Kythera, and how does it tackle the digital-skills gap?
• Malta's agri-food open-call path — How did the Maltese pilot's three open-call projects build on each other, and what was the winning idea of the MaYA Agri-Tech Ideathon?

Chapter 7: Policy and Governance

EU policy frames, the 2040 rural vision, defining rural territory, and how a region turns a policy gap into measurable action

• The EU rural policy landscape — Which main EU policy frames shape a rural-urban region, and what does the OECD say makes rural policy work?
• The EU Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas — What are the four aims of the EU Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas, and what two pillars carry it?
• Slovakia's national rural vision — What does the Slovak pilot set out to do with its national rural vision, and how does its policy brief tie the plan to EU frames?
• Defining rural territory — How are functional rural areas built, and why are they a better unit for rural policy than municipalities or NUTS-3 regions?
• Rural regions in the European Green Deal — Which concrete themes does D2.2 derive from the Green Deal for PoliRural+ pilots, and which EU initiatives help deliver them?
• From policy gap to intervention logic — How does a region move from a policy gap analysis to measures it can monitor, according to D3.1?

Chapter 8: Innovation and Heritage

Rural innovation hubs, heritage platforms and the people-place bond

• Rural innovation hubs — Why does PoliRural+ treat rural innovation hubs differently from urban incubators, and what is the status of the hubs the pilots propose?
• The proposed Klatovy innovation hub — What is the Klatovy innovation hub, what model is it adapted from, and what is its status?
• ARISE heritage platform (Cuenca) — What problem did ARISE solve in Sierra y Mancha Conquense, and what did it leave behind for other regions?
• The people–place bond — What do PoliRural+ practices tagged 'people–place bond' have in common, and how is the bond being tested in Mallusjoki?
• New European Bauhaus synergies — How is the New European Bauhaus built into PoliRural+, and where does it show up in pilot work?

Chapter 9: Community, stakeholders and open calls

Who delivers PoliRural+, how the pilots engage stakeholders, and how €850,968 of cascade funding reached 26 outside projects

• The PoliRural+ consortium — How is the PoliRural+ consortium put together, and how does it connect to the nine pilots?
• The open-call ladder — What does each of the four PoliRural+ open calls fund, and how did the delivered scheme differ from the plan?
• The multi-actor approach — What does the multi-actor approach ask of a PoliRural+ pilot, and how does the tiered stakeholder framework put it into practice?
• Lessons on uptake — Which barriers to engagement and uptake did the PoliRural+ open-call projects report, and what does D6.3 recommend for future calls?

Chapter 10: Research & Publications

What the platform and pilots try to prove, and the outputs you can open

• Research pillars of PoliRural+ — What are the four research pillars of PoliRural+, and how does the project show that its tools work beyond the pilots?
• System dynamics in rural policy — Where does system dynamics appear in PoliRural+, and what is it meant to add to Regional Action Plans?
• Grounded AI for rural planning — Under what conditions does D4.2 consider AI answers usable for planning decisions?
• Metadata-driven spatial data infrastructure — What changed between the PoliRural+ proof of concept and the Beta in how data reaches the AI tools?
• Public research outputs — Which two PoliRural+ research outputs with a public link deal with trustworthy AI, and what does each do?

Chapter 11: Results & Legacy

What the project produced, how well it worked, and what is meant to continue after December 2026.

• Open-call results — What did the PoliRural+ open calls produce, and how strong is the evidence that the instrument worked?
• Atlas of best practices — What is the PoliRural+ Atlas of best practices, and how can a region outside the project use it?
• Key exploitable results (KERs) — Which key exploitable results does D7.4 name, and how will the final selection be made?
• Practice abstracts — What are the PoliRural+ practice abstracts, and what does batch 1 (D7.2) cover?
• What remains after the project — What is meant to continue after PoliRural+ ends in December 2026, and on what terms?

Chapter 12: AI Ethics & Trust

How PoliRural+ keeps people in charge of AI in rural-urban planning: principles, the AI Act, safeguards and known limits

• Participatory AI Principles — What are the PoliRural+ Participatory AI Principles, and which premise ties them together?
• Alignment with the EU AI Act — How does PoliRural+ relate its AI principles to the EU AI Act, and what kind of document is that mapping?
• The AI ethics dashboard for pilots — What does the PoliRural+ AI ethics dashboard ask a pilot to do?
• Data protection and responsible AI on the platform — Which safeguards does the PoliRural+ Beta platform use to protect data and keep AI outputs accountable?
• Known limits of AI tools, and the safeguards — What problems did PoliRural+ testers and pilots find with the project's AI tools, and which safeguards do the sources name?
• How this book uses AI — How was this knowledge base produced with AI, and what keeps its verified core trustworthy?

For AI agents and developers

• MCP server (read-only, Streamable HTTP, no key): https://polirural-pbook.vercel.app/api/mcp — tools search, get_concept, get_block, list_chapters, list_datasets, query_dataset.
• llms.txt (index) · llms-full.txt (the whole book as one text) · kb/index.json (search index)
• Raw content: content/book.json, content/concepts.json (concepts with their recall question and expected answer), markdown under /content/; manifest pbook.json; contribution brief AGENTS.md.
• Open data: pilots (The nine rural pilot regions: territory, lead partner, theme, link to the pilot's page) · partners (The 20 beneficiaries: short name, legal name, country, type, role, website) · practices (Atlas of best practices: id, title, country, site, activity types and a one-line summary (full records at atlasbestpractices.com)) · deliverables (Public deliverables of PoliRuralPlus with their status and PDF link) · open-calls (The four open-call phases (financial support to third parties) and the funded third-party projects)