GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

The successful proposals should contribute to the soil mission specific objective 8 soil literacy. The proposed activities will:

• support a large number of municipalities and regions throughout Europe, and related networks, including across borders, to identify, mobilise and engage a critical mass of relevant actors, stakeholders (e.g. farmers and farmers’ association, foresters, land managers, urban and spatial planners, civil society organisations, bio-industries, market actors and research institutions), citizens and existing networks of citizens for substantially stepping up the protection and restoration of soil health in all ecosystems (natural, managed, rural and urban);
• explore with regional and local authorities opportunities for making better use of EU financial instruments for sustainable soil management, taking into account programming options taken at the level of Member States and regions;
• enable and support municipalities and regions to co-design strategies and actions for the protection and restoration of soil health with citizens, in coherence with EU soil policy and regional strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3) and for smart specialisation for sustainability (RIS4), as applicable;
• develop and implement effective participatory processes which enable and stimulate an extensive dialogue on soil and land related activities at local and regional (when applicable) levels. For these processes to be effective, participants should be equipped with appropriate tools and information, they should be strongly connected to decision-making bodies and they should be empowered to reflect, deliberate and propose public (including policies) and private solutions for sustainable land management and spatial planning at their local or regional levels;
• enhance knowledge sharing among municipalities and regions on best practice processes and outcomes, matching knowledge needs with knowledge produced;
• strengthen inclusive and extensive European networks of municipalities and regions (e.g. the European Land and Soil Alliance), in interlink, synergy and complementarity with other relevant networks, pursuing citizen-identified soil related objectives, engaged in peer-to-peer learning and co-implementing the co-created solutions;
• substantially increase the capacity of these networks to contribute to meeting the objectives and targets of the Soil Mission;
• include a task to collaborate with the other projects funded under this topic to ensure complementarities, synergies and clear communication to stakeholders around the open calls for third party funding.