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The main goal of the Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ is to establish 100 living labs and lighthouses to lead the transition towards healthy soils by 2030.
Published on | 2 years ago
Last updated on | 2 weeks ago
pascal.verheye@vlaio.be
We take soils for granted but they are a scarce, non-renewable and threatened resource. 60-70% of the EU soils are unhealty. The Soil Mission aims to lead the transition towards healthy soils by
The Mission will support the EU’s ambition to lead on global commitments, notably the Sustainable Development Goals, and contribute to the European Green Deal targets on sustainable farming, climate resilience, biodiversity and zero-pollution. It is also a flagship initiative of the long-term vision for rural areas.
In a Living Lab, experimentations happen in real-life conditions, operating with end-users i.e. commercial farms or forest exploitations, urban green parks or industrial sites and other actors such as local authorities. It will be partnerships between multiple actors, like researchers, farmers, foresters, spatial planners, land managers, and citizens who come together to co-create innovations for a jointly agreed objective.
Lighthouses are single sites, like a farm or a park, where to showcase good practices to inspire other practitioners. These are places for demonstration and peer-to-peer learning. In lighthouse sites, researchers work together with land managers to ensure that research responds to concrete needs encountered in the field.
The Soil Mission Implementation Plan aims to be the operational blueprint for how the Commission will deliver on the main goal and the objectives of this Mission, providing an operational course of action.
The Commission invites researchers and innovators as well as citizens and all interested stakeholders to take part in the Soil Mission. Forthcoming and open calls for the Soil Mission are published here.
A portfolio of projects & results on soil research and innovation funded under past framework programmes FP6 (2002-2006), FP7 (2007-2013) and Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) and the current Horizon Europe framework programme (2021-2027) can be found in the CORDIS database.
Soil-related projects supported by European Regions can be found in the KOHESIO database.
The Commission has made its first assessment of the EU Missions in a Communication published in the 3rd quarter of 2023. It expresses the Commissions support for the continuation of the 5 EU Missions. An external assessment of EU Missions was commissioned to underpin the Commission assessment, including a review of the Soil Mission. You can find the summary of this review here & the full review is available here .
Find it out here.
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The Miricle project, ‘Mine Risk Clearance for Europe’, obtained funding under the European Defence Industrial Development programme call ‘Underwater control contributing to resilience at sea’. The main objective of the project was to achieve a European and sovereign capacity in future mine warfare and create a path for the next generation ‘made in Europe’ countermeasure solutions. In order to realise this objective, Miricle addressed various stages: studies, design, prototyping and testing. These stages inter alia included the successful testing of an XL Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, a protototyped mine disposal system and multiple innovative systems to detect buried mines. Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), was one of the five Belgian partners in the consortium. Within the project, VLIZ was able to forward its research on the acoustic imaging of the seabed to spatially map and visualize buried structures and objects - in this case buried mines - in the highest possible detail. VLIZ also led the work on ‘Port and Offshore Testing’, building on the expertise of the institute in the field of marine operations and technology.
