SOLO

The EU Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ is leading the transition towards healthy soils by 2030. Research is key to achieving eight ambitious objectives that include reducing desertification, conserving soil organic carbon stocks and improving soil structure to enhance soil biodiversity. In this context, the EU-funded SOLO project will drive the creation of think tanks, one for each of the eight Soil Mission objectives. The think tanks will co-create knowledge and identify knowledge gaps. Through an open digital platform, they will function as an operational tool for implementing a participatory process and to address the potential regional differences in the implementation of the Soil Mission. The project’s overall objective is to produce a shared understanding of needs and the research and innovation priorities.

Soils are under multiple pressures, including climate change, urbanisation, pollution, overexploitation, and biodiversity loss. The specific objectives of the EU Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ address all these pressures, needing now: i) actionable research and innovation roadmaps for its concretisation; and, ii) an overarching trans-disciplinary agenda to identify the thematic and regional trade-offs and synergies that allow the sustainable use, management, and protection of European soils. Defining such an agenda requires the direct involvement of a wide range of stakeholders, bringing together multiple perspectives and ecological, environmental, economic and social contexts. To do that, at the core of SOLO will be the implementation of Think Tanks, one for each Soil Mission objective, with the aim of co-creating knowledge and identifying the knowledge gaps, drivers, bottlenecks, and novel approaches, as well as suggesting KPIs to monitor the progress of the Mission R&I related activities. Together with an open digital platform, the Think Tanks will function as an operational tool for implementing a participatory process that will last beyond SOLO's lifespan. 

SOLO will also address the potential differences in the regional implementation of the Soil Mission by testing its approach in four co-creation Regional Nodes, generating their own regional roadmaps that will be matched with the European ones. These explicit linkages between the co-creation mechanisms and the different project components aim to produce a shared understanding of needs and comprehensive identification of research and innovation priorities and other critical activities for the success of the Soil Mission.