In December 2022, the EC launched the Mission 'A Soil Deal for Europe' aiming to establish and fund 100 Living Labs (LL) and Lighthouses (LH) to drive the transition to healthy soils by 2030, in the framework of the Horizon Europe Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027). The first round of Soil Mission funded Soil Health Living Labs and Lighthouses are expected to be announced in mid-2024 at which time the PREPSOIL map will be updated to identify the Mission-funded Soil Health Living Labs and Lighthouse as well as other sites based on a more detailed taxonomy and in line with the criteria defining Soil Health LLs and LHs established in the Soil Mission Implementation Plan.
In the meantime, the PREPSOIL map aims to provide an overview of Soil Health initiatives across Europe that are active or starting their activities as Living Lab and Lighthouse, in order to facilitate knowledge exchange, networking and consortia creation.
Living Lab
Lighthouse
Living Lab and LighthouseThe map of LL and LH initiatives was initiated by the Soil Mission Support project (GA No. 10100025), which identified 180 initiatives with potential relevance for Living Labs and lighthouses. PREPSOIL aims to review these initiatives, refine the current map and supplement it with further data including those collected through a self-registration form. Thus, we expect that the LL and LH initiatives collected via this self-reporting will be aligned as much as possible with the criteria for the selection of a soil health LL/LH under the Soil Mission (as presented in the Mission Implementation Plan1). Currently, the map may serve as inspiration for networking and creating the right contacts between interested stakeholders. We, therefore, encourage all stakeholders to report relevant LL and LH initiatives using the self-registration form.
A self-assessment tool is being developed and will be published soon to assess the maturity level of LL & LH initiatives and support them in identifying areas for improvement. New sites submitted through the self-registration form will only be published once the self-assessment tool is ready.