PREPSOIL is supporting the European Union Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe ” aims to establish 100 Living Labs (LLs) and Lighthouses (LHs) to lead the transition towards healthy soils by 2030.
Living Labs stimulate innovation thanks to their new way of developing and applying knowledge by transferring research from laboratories to a real-life environment. Within the “Soil Deal for Europe” Mission, LLs have the potential to empower a green transition towards healthy soils by developing solutions in a co-creative manner and involving actors in real life settings at territorial level to achieve large-scale impact.
How is PREPSOIL helping the "A Soil Deal for Europe" Mission
PREPSOIL is empowering the laying of foundations for both the creation and maturation of LLs & LHs, through the following lines of action:
- Create an online and interactive atlas that maps current and emerging initiatives of Soil Health LLs and LHs in Europe;
- Define a taxonomy of LL/LH types according to the different land uses, including criteria that support them to assess their maturity levels;
- Design a wider spectrum of business models to ensure the sustainability of LLs/LHs in the different soil use types, including ideas of smart financing;
- Provide a service package to accelerate the adoption, maturity and optimise the running of the Mission Soil LLs/LHs.
How do we collect inputs?
PREPSOIL is organising several workshops with LLs and LHs communities to raise awareness on the importance of self-sustained LLs and LHs, as well as collect feedback to support PREPSOIL in the development of related outputs:
- March 2023 – collect inputs related to the framework to support the development of business models;
- October 2023 – collect inputs related to ongoing needs for maturity and long-term success of LLs and LHs (read the newspiece);
- June 2024 – host webinar focused on Smart Financing for LLs and LHs (see recording - PART 1 and PART 2);
- 2024 (date to be defined) – focused on the Service Package for soil-related LLs and LHs.
We invite you to take a look at PREPSOIL materials to support the creation of LLs and LHs!
Access our LLs and LHs business model and service package (more info soon)
What are Soil Health Living Labs and Lighthouses?
Living Labs are user-centred, place-based, and transdisciplinary research and innovation ecosystems, which involve land managers, scientists, and other relevant partners, at regional or sub-regional level, in systemic research and codesign, testing, monitoring and evaluation of solutions, in real-life settings, to improve their effectiveness for soil health and accelerate adoption. The Soil Health Living Labs are tasked with coordinating Experimental Sites, which involve conducting experiments across various locations such as farms, forests, and industrial areas. These sites have then the potential to evolve into Lighthouses.
Lighthouses are places for demonstration of solutions, training and communication that are exemplary in their performance in terms of soil health improvement. They are local sites (one farm, one forest exploitation, one industrial site, one urban city green area, etc.) that can be included in a living lab area or be situated outside a living lab area.
For a deeper understanding of Living Labs and Lighthouses within the framework of Mission Soil, please refer to the Mission Implementation Plan. You can learn more about the role of Living Labs and Lighthouses in the transition towards healthy soils in the video below, produced by the SMS project.