The Joint Research Centre is the European Commission's science and knowledge service. The Global Human Settlement (GHS) framework produces new global spatial information, evidence-based analytics and knowledge describing the human presence on the planet. It operates in an open and free data and methods access policy (open input, open method, open output). It is supported by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the DG for Regional Development (DG REGIO) of the European Commission, together with the international partnership GEO Human Planet Initiative.