Specific Grant Agreement for a Living Lab Support Structure

Within the Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) awarded under topic HORIZON-MISS-2022-SOIL-01-08: Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) for a living lab network support structure, the selected consortium is invited to submit a proposal for a Specific Grant Agreement (SGA). This SGA will cover two years of the FPA (2026-2027). One single proposal should be submitted. The evaluation committee will be composed entirely by representatives of EU institutions.

The support structure under this SGA should continue to implement the action plan presented under the FPA while building on the needs and gaps identified by the first SGA (SOILL-Startup), which is currently running (2024-2025) and the European Commission.

Proposed activities should:

• Give continuity to SOILL-Startup activities in terms of tailored support to Mission Soil funded living labs and lighthouses (LL & LH), in the form of advice in their day-to-day operations (including on technical, networking and communication issues), capacity building, training and monitoring (including harmonization of approaches within and across LL). The SGA should also provide selected services to other LL & LH working on soil health issues, created by other projects or by other programmes. Finally, the SGA should expand its activities to support emerging soil health initiatives (including existing on the ground experiments), showing potential to develop in mature LL & LH.
• Facilitate the exchange of knowledge, data, findings and experiences within and across LL & LH (with a focus on, but not limited to, those funded under the Mission Soil) and with key stakeholders and other projects, where co-design, testing and evaluation of innovative soil management practices and technologies will take place. To this end, the SGA should continue identifying common areas of interest between funded LL & LH to engage them in concrete actions that create synergies and capitalise on the wealth of existing experiences and resources. This includes, amongst others, the organization of workshops, seminars, annual network meetings, cross-visits and training modules. Activities should result in the creation of working groups, learning material and tools addressing specific technical themes (e.g. particular soil challenges or land uses) as well as transversal aspects (e.g. data management, monitoring of progress, use of digital tools, integration of behavioural sciences in research and innovation). The participation in or collaboration with working groups or clusters created by the Mission Secretariat, other projects or by the Mission Soil Platform (MSP) should be foreseen. In addition to enhancing operational capacities of living lab partners, the exchange of experiences should serve to promote a wider dialogue between the various living labs on their contribution to the Mission’s objectives and to discuss possibilities for scaling up activities beyond the living lab areas.
• Support LL & LH projects in establishing a route towards open access, longevity, sustainability and interoperability of knowledge and outputs through close collaboration with the European Union Soil Observatory (EUSO) and the project SoilWise. In particular, the SGA should contribute to the systematic collection of soil health data and indicators from LL activities to ensure a continuous flow of high-quality information on local soil health conditions to support Member States in implementing the future Soil Monitoring Law. Likewise, the SGA will help identify, disseminate and implement sustainable soil management practices and solutions created, tested and demonstrated in LL & LH, so that these are widely known and can be accessed by potential users outside the living lab areas. The SGA should also flag opportunities for the living labs to make use of data and services available from European Research Infrastructures federated under the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) or from relevant Data Spaces, as indicated in the Soil Mission implementation plan.
• Promote the creation of new LL & LH by providing potential applicants with information, guidelines, recommendations and dedicated services (such as a helpdesk, a capacity building, mentoring programme and matchmaking tools) on the Mission’s living lab concept and its implementation as well as with ideas for collaboration. To reach a wide audience, the support structure should widely publicise its information, amongst others by organising targeted match-making events as a follow up to those carried out under the project NATI00NS. Due attention shall be given to ensuring a balanced thematic and geographic coverage of the growing network of LL & LH.
• Help funded LL & LH in developing strategies to sustain their activities beyond the lifetime of each project. This will include assisting living lab partners in the development of financial strategies and long-term management plans, as well as strengthening connections with local business communities, in particular SMEs, investors and other commercial stakeholders as well as social economy entities and social enterprises. To this end, assist also applicants to LL topics to explore new public or private funding schemes and financial instruments, involving, where relevant, finance providers such as financial institutions and investors.
• Apply the “quality standards” developed under SOILL-Startup for the validation of LL & LH depending on their level of development and advance towards an acknowledgment certification. This should support harmonisation and comparability of approaches across LL & LH working in different settings and on different themes. Conduct a specific assessment of activities in sites that can potentially develop into lighthouses. Assist LL & LH in their transition towards acknowledgment by the Mission Soil providing the corresponding certification.
• Continue monitoring and assessing the performance of the LL & LH in a systematic way and report the main achievements, experiences and issues encountered when working within a living lab approach. The periodicity of the quantitative reporting should be agreed with the Mission Secretariat. A detailed qualitative evaluation of the progress achieved by the funded living lab projects should be reported in a yearly basis. These reports should bring together and complement the information arising from monitoring activities performed by each of the funded living lab projects on their proposed solutions to the identified soil health challenges. Close cooperation with the MSP regarding the reporting and monitoring requirements is essential to feed into their overall monitoring of the Mission, as the SGA will be the main contact point for the MSP to obtain high quality information and data on the performance of the living lab projects.
• Maintain and further develop the web-portal initiated by SOILL-Startup and other tools and services for information, dissemination, exchange of experiences and outreach, integrating and further developing existing information and resources. Through the provision of a collaborative space for LL & LH partners, the web-portal should support the establishment of a dynamic and inclusive community of practice.
• Maintain and further develop an interactive map of LL & LH initiatives building on and integrating the maps set-up by the project PREPSOIL and by SOILL-Startup. The map will contain all three categories of LL & LH above-mentioned: 1) those LL & LH funded under dedicated topics of the Mission Soil; 2) other soil health LL & LH created under other projects or programmes that are aligned to the Mission Soil criteria; and 3) emerging and growing soil health initiatives (including existing on the ground experiments) showing potential to develop in mature LL & LH.
• Produce regular newsflashes and a 3-monthly electronic newsletter to support the evolving community of practice of LL. Communication and outreach should benefit LL & LH operating as part of the Mission Soil or outside, as well as a wide range of stakeholders and the wider public.
• Offer training activities and capacity building for soil managers, landowners, advisors and relevant authorities on sustainable soil management practices, as well as activities to support soil education and citizen engagement, in line with and in support of the objectives of the future Soil Monitoring Law.
• Activities performed by the SGA should support all emerging and established LL & LH, regardless of their geographical and thematic coverage.

The general conditions, including admissibility conditions, eligibility conditions, award criteria, evaluation and award procedure, legal and financial set-up for grants, financial and operational capacity and exclusion, and procedure are provided in parts A to G of the General Annexes.

This action will be implemented through a Coordination and Support Action (CSA). Legal entities established in non-associated third countries may exceptionally participate in this action.