Jump-start the Mission Soil

Cluster event of projects funded under the EU Mission 'A Soil Deal for Europe'

Healthy soils are essential to meet climate and biodiversity goals under the European Green Deal. At the European level, healthy soils are at the centre of three complementary elements:

• the EU soil strategy for 2030 and the upcoming Soil Health Law which provide the policy framework;
• the European Soil Observatory (EUSO) which will become the long-term data and knowledge reservoir for soils;
• and, the EU Mission A Soil Deal for Europe (Mission Soil) as one the main funding mechanisms combining research and innovation activities, local testing grounds, monitoring and engagement activities.

Description

The Mission Soil is specifically mentioned in several policies as an instrument needed to achieve their targets and is expected to mobilise actors across the EU going beyond the research community and engaging a much broader public, from Member States to regions and municipalities.

Projects funded under the Mission calls are expected to contribute to different activities of the European Commission on healthy soils and actively contribute to the European Soil Observatory (EUSO).

Following the first Mission calls, 11 grants are currently under implementation and 17 new grants are under preparation.

These grants will be part of a wider portfolio of projects and will contribute to laying the foundations for a structured rollout of the mission activities. Projects are requested to effectively build on the activities and results of on-going or past initiatives and are asked to collaborate with projects funded under these and following calls. It is crucial that projects are well informed of the entire context of the Mission Soil and its expectations and develop an increased understanding of how they can liaise and contribute to other Mission activities and the EUSO. These also include the identification of areas of complementarities where co-creation of results and outputs are desirable, as well as the planning of joint activities to maximize outreach and allow a greater contribution to the Mission Soil goal, objectives and expected impacts.

The cluster event will facilitate identification of potential complementarities between the projects, their thematic coverage as well as on the type of results and data that would feed into the EUSO. It will also introduce the Mission Implementation Platform that will assist the European Commission and support the overall coordination, monitoring of the Mission activities, reaching out to stakeholders and foster the clustering between projects.

The event is by invitation only. The agenda includes presentation of key activities from funded projects, of the policy context and the role of institutional Mission’s actors, as well as opportunities for projects to discuss and identify synergies and complementarities. Collaboration will be particularly encouraged on stakeholder engagement, soil literacy, local and regional activities and data management.

Around 150 participants are expected in the hybrid event.