Supporting Mission Soil: Highlights from the PREPSOIL Final Event in Brussels
On 26 May 2025, soil experts, policymakers, regional authorities, researchers, and civil society advocates gathered at the European Committee of the Regions in Brussels, Belgium, for the PREPSOIL Final Event.
While celebrating the project’s achievements, the event focused on how PREPSOIL’s outputs are being actively exploited, scaled, and integrated into practical soil health action and soil literacy enhancement across Europe.
Hosted by the European Committee of the Regions, the event highlighted key exploitation pathways for PREPSOIL results—showcasing how local and national authorities, living labs, and civil society are already using project tools, methods, and networks to advance soil health governance aligned with the EU Soil Strategy and Mission Soil objectives.
Morning Welcome and Keynotes: From Policy to Practice
Niels Halberg (Aarhus University / PREPSOIL Coordinator) opened the day by reflecting on the project’s origins in 2022, a time when there was no Soil Monitoring Law on the horizon. PREPSOIL initially focused on laying the groundwork by developing tools and creating spaces for interaction and knowledge-sharing, aiming to improve awareness and raise soil literacy across Europe.
Now, three years later, PREPSOIL’s output is being actively taken up to support the deployment of Mission Soil. The project has shifted from raising awareness to enabling practice, providing knowledge, stakeholder engagement tools, and region-specific insights that public authorities, researchers, and civil society actors can use, adapt, and further develop to improve soil health across Europe.
Frida Nilsson, Member of the European Committee of the Regions, emphasized that soil monitoring requires coordinated, “from the ground up” action at local and regional levels to reflect diverse soil realities. Jelena Vidovic from the DG AGRI Mission Soil Secretariat presented key Mission Soil achievements and reinforced PREPSOIL’s role in accelerating soil health governance across the EU.
Session 1: Enabling Public Authorities to Apply Soil Health Tools
Moderated by Pablo Gómez Grande (INIA-CSIC / PREPSOIL), this session focused on how PREPSOIL’s regional soil needs assessments, coordination tools, and stakeholder dialogues support public authorities in translating soil health objectives into territorial action.
Saskia Keesstra (WUR / PREPSOIL) presented the regional soil needs assessment framework, which several regions and mirror groups are already adapting as a decision-support tool.
Panelists including Pierpaolo Piras (CoR) and Bavo Peeters (DG ENV) emphasized the importance of using this framework, alongside PREPSOIL’s capacity-building materials, to equip Member States and regions with actionable, context-sensitive data.
Other panelists, such as Lydie Sombre (Environmental Agency of the Brussels Capital Region) and Oskars Balodis (Latvian Rural Advisory and Training Center), stressed that soil literacy tools and engagement formats piloted in PREPSOIL are ready to be reused and scaled within regional administrations and advisory systems – helping bridge the gap between science and governance.
Session 2: Scaling Living Labs and Lighthouses for Regional Impact
Moderated by Saskia Keesstra, this session zoomed in on Living Labs and Lighthouses, PREPSOIL’s innovative platforms for soil co-creation, experimentation, and long-term regional learning.
Isabelle Couture and Mar Ylla (ENoLL / PREPSOIL) showcased the project’s Living Lab methodology, now being replicated by partners in collaboration with regional authorities, as well as other PREPSOIL outputs related to LLs & LHs: PREPSOIL Online Atlas (showcasing Living Labs, Lighthouses, and related initiatives across Europe), Living Lab Taxonomy (classification system that helps define and compare LLs and LHs working on soil challenges, aligned with Mission Soil priorities), Business Model Canvas & Catalogue (a customized framework for defining value propositions, partnerships, and sustainability strategies) and Toolbox for Soil Living Lab Growth (a practical collection of templates, guides, and methods to support every stage of a Soil Living Lab’s development, from planning to impact).
Isabelle Couture and Mar Ylla (ENoLL / PREPSOIL) also showcased the project’s Living Lab methodology, now being replicated by partners in collaboration with regional authorities.
The panel, which included representatives from IRTA, Pays de la Loire Chamber of Agriculture, DIMITRA, and RISE, demonstrated how these labs are embedding themselves in existing soil governance structures to ensure sustainability beyond PREPSOIL.
Laura Nougues (Deltares / SOILL-Startup) presented how the SOILL and SOILL-Startup initiatives will further exploit PREPSOIL methods by supporting new labs, scaling existing ones, and creating platforms for shared learning and impact evaluation.
Session 3: Civil Society Engagement Tools Ready for Uptake
Moderated by Jennie Barron (SLU / PREPSOIL), this session highlighted ready-to-use tools and strategies co-developed to raise soil literacy and activate citizen involvement.
Christina Lundström (SLU / PREPSOIL), Tove Ortman (NIBIO), and Valeriya Fetisova (Trust-IT Services) presented concrete outputs, including tools for soil co-learning, citizen soil ambassador training, and inclusive stakeholder mapping.
Panelists such as Fernando Coelho (Lipor) and Sonia Rodrigues (CURIOSOIL - se her interview below) shared how these engagement methods are already being adopted in ongoing projects, demonstrating clear exploitation of PREPSOIL’s outcomes beyond the consortium.
To name a few, PREPSOIL identified examples of best teaching practices in Europe, that are increasing the understanding of soils by the future generations and the public at large. PREPSOIL also screened several soil Communities of Practice (CoPs) with real examples of community-led initiatives across Europe where actors get together to address, and act upon, a specific concern related to soils. The project also launched the PREPSOIL Mobile App, a free digital solution helping European soil players acquire knowledge on soil, with SOIL QUESTS citizen science project where citizens can upload an image of soil in a specific region, indicate the levels of soil erosion, or request any other type of relevant information to support science knowledge sharing. The PREPSOIL Knowledge-Hub is multi-language online library that provides access to numerous resources including best practices, policy recommendations, experiments, video materials and publications focused on different aspects of soil health in Europe.
Session 4: Sustaining National-Level Capacity Building
Moderated by Niels Halberg, the final session explored how national stakeholders can institutionalize PREPSOIL coordination formats such as mirror groups and national soil hubs as permanent stakeholder forums for soil governance.
Flavien Poincot (ACTA / PREPSOIL) highlighted that several Member States are already interested in embedding these platforms in long-term governance systems.
José Luis Pita-Romero Herrero (INIA-CSIC / PREPSOIL) noted that PREPSOIL’s soil monitoring knowledge base is now accessible to support ongoing training and policy development across the EU.
Looking ahead: PREPSOIL as a launchpad for soil action
As Niels Halberg concluded, “This event is not an end, but a beginning.”
PREPSOIL has laid solid groundwork for Mission Soil implementation and, crucially, developed tools, methods, and partnerships that are already being exploited across Europe.
From regional soil assessments and civil society engagement to national coordination platforms and Living Labs, PREPSOIL’s legacy is actively transforming soil health policies into practice across policies, territories, and communities.
All presentations, photos, and session summaries are available at prepsoil.eu.