NATI00NS

The EU Mission "A Soil Deal for Europe" aims at establishing 100 regional Living Labs and Lighthouses as innovation and knowledge beacons that can collaboratively create and test land management practices and solutions; the aim is to improve soil health to lever systemic change in land use so that the European soils health status is substantially restored by 2030, setting course towards 100 % healthy soils by 2050. Through national engagement events organised in 43 countries (all EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries), the EU-funded NATI00NS project will reach out to relevant stakeholders seen as potential actors and through individual coaching sessions, capacity building activities and matchmaking sessions prepare them to apply for and implement soil health Living Labs.

NATI00NS will assist the EU Mission 'A Soil Deal for Europe’ during most of its first "induction and pilot" phase (2021 – 2025), acting as a messenger and conveying awareness-raising messages to national and regional stakeholders, providing access to capacity building materials and information, spurring the discussions on the best Living-Lab (LL) setups to address regional soil needs, and fostering early matchmaking for cross-regional LL clusters. Eventually, the smooth execution of the project will be reflected in the number of high-quality applications received in the first open calls and the funding of the first two waves of LL projects, which can lead the way for the systemic change boosted by the Soil Mission. The takeaways will be also useful for upcoming activities in the Soil Mission's second "expansion and innovation" phase (2025 – 2030) when the rest of the waves of LLs will be selected.

NATI00NS' consortium has been carefully selected and formed with the intention of gathering and covering all the necessary expertise needed to ensure the successful execution of the work plan and achievement of the project's objectives. This will, in turn, allow the partners to contribute to the Soil Mission’s expected impact on society, following the achievement of its objectives and goal. On the one hand, the project is counting on top experts on soil science and the co-participatory place-based innovation approaches to be put in place in the Living Labs. On the other hand, NATI00NS is granting adequate national outreach in all EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries through its 14 partners, its Key network group representatives and all their networks (i.e. BIOEAST, European Network of Living Labs, Soil Health National Hubs, ERIAFF, etc.).