The Mission Soil will put in place a network of 100 Living Labs and Lighthouses in rural and urban areas by 2030 to support the transition towards healthy soils. Living Labs and Lighthouses play a crucial role in accelerating the adoption of sustainable practices by users and in fostering the development of solutions tailored to specific local conditions.
Mission Soil Living Labs are user-centred, place-based and transdisciplinary research and innovation ecosystems that involve multiple partners (e.g., land managers, scientists, citizens, businesses, and local authorities) to co-design, test, monitor and evaluate solutions in real-life settings for improving soil health.
Mission Soil Living Labs involve partners from different backgrounds, disciplines and/or sectors and are composed of several sites. The number of sites will depend on the specific context (e.g., the land use(s) and the soil health challenge(s) addressed by the Living Labs). By working together on themes of common interest, the various partners involved in the sites will be able to replicate actions and solutions, compare results, exchange good practices, validate methodologies and benefit from cross-fertilisation within a local/regional setting.
The Work Programme 2023, which closed on 20 September 2023, included two calls to fund Living Labs The projects funded under the call HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-08 (Co-creating solutions for soil health in Living Labs) are LivingSoiLL, GOV4ALL, iCOSHELLs, and SOILCRATES; and LILAS4SOILS funded under the HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-09 (Carbon farming in Living Labs).
The Work Programme 2024, which closed on 8 October 2024, included two further calls to fund Living Labs. The projects funded under the call HORIZON-MISS-2024-SOIL-01-01 (Co-creating solutions for soil health in Living Labs) are TRAILS4SOIL, Nemesis and GroundWork; and URSOILL under HORIZON-MISS-2024-SOIL-01-02 (Living Labs in urban areas for healthy soils).
The Work Programme 2025 launched two new calls for the creation and establishment of Living Labs:
- HORIZON-MISS-2025-05-SOIL-01: Living Labs for soil remediation and green redevelopment of brownfields – single-stage call, closed 30 September 2025. The projects[GA1] funded under this call are:REGENSOILL, LandPrint, HydroDataCube4EU, SOILHARMONY, SOILCHAINS, SoilPATH, SOILBIOMASS+, PSOILICY, SOILSTICE, CREDIBLE 2.0 and SaliNova
- HORIZON-MISS-2025-05-SOIL-01: Living labs to enhance soil health in Continental, Boreal and Alpine biogeographical regions – two-stage call, with a first-stage deadline of 4 September 2025 and a second-stage deadline of 18 February 2026.
New call for proposals has been launched in the Work Programme 2026–2027. See below the list.
HORIZON-MISS-2026-05; single-stage calls with deadline for submitting proposals by 23 September 2026:
1. HORIZON-MISS-2026-05-SOIL-01: Monitoring soil health in practice: equipping stakeholders to sample, analyse, and interpret soil health indicators
2. HORIZON-MISS-2026-05-SOIL-02: Antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic biosynthesis in soils: developing key understanding and counteractive strategies using a One-Health approach
3. HORIZON-MISS-2026-05-SOIL-03: Enabling user-centred and open innovation initiatives to enhance soil health in Ukraine
4. HORIZON-MISS-2026-05-SOIL-04: Leveraging long-term field experiments and other datasets to develop AI-ready decision support systems for sustainable soil management
HORIZON-MISS-2026-05-two-stage – two-stage call with a first deadline for submitting proposals by 14 April 2026:
1. HORIZON-MISS-2026-05-SOIL-01-two-stage: Living labs to enhance soil health in Alpine and Atlantic biogeographical regions
2. HORIZON-MISS-2026-05-SOIL-02-two-stage: Living labs to enhance soil health in managed forests and in natural/semi-natural lands
HORIZON-MISS-2027 – two-stage call, opening 4 February 2027 — with a first deadline for submitting proposals by 8 April 2027.
In addition, the joint call HORIZON-MISS-2027-06-SOIL-CANCER: Living labs to monitor and mitigate carcinogenic substances in and originating from soils, run between the Mission Soil and the Cancer Mission, will fund Living Labs under a single-stage procedure with deadline for submitting proposals by 21 September 2027.
Applicants and Living Labs are supported by SOILL-StepUp, the continuation of the SOILL Framework Partnership following the initial SOILL-Startup project. SOILL-StepUp provides structured support across the full journey — coordination, training, knowledge sharing, monitoring, and a digital hub — for existing, emerging and future Soil Health Living Labs and Lighthouses across Europe. Through the SOILL Hub, a dedicated helpdesk, and the Atlas of the Mission Soil Living Labs and Lighthouses, it supports the network of 100 Living Labs and Lighthouses leading the transition to healthy soils by 2030. It is funded under the European Union's Horizon Europe programme (Grant Agreement No. 101262100).
Related links:
Map and Catalogue of Living Labs