TRAILS4SOIL will co-create 5 Living Labs (LLs) across 9 European countries, encompassing 100 experimentation sites including 11 lighthouses. This initiative aims to address the urgent need for sustainable soil management in Europe by fostering stakeholder collaboration and overcoming barriers to the widespread implementation of better soil management farming systems. The project will develop pathways for implementing economic, policy, technical, and social measures to drive the transition towards a resilient and sustainable agri-food system grounded on healthy soils. Through innovative and participatory research in diverse agroecosystems, TRAILS4SOIL will demonstrate the potential of Regenerative and Conservation Agriculture Practices (ReCAP) to achieve the objectives of the EU Soil Mission. By actively engaging local communities in a multi-actor approach process TRAILS4SOIL will provide tailored scientific knowledge and technical guidelines, that will inspire and empower farmers and other stakeholders to promote sustainable land management improving soil health. The interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary expertise of the consortium, which includes 22 partners among universities, research centres and farmer associations, will ensure the achievement of the proposed objective. TRAILS4SOIL will advance the understanding of soil health by integrating cutting-edge technologies to facilitate the widespread adoption of sustainable soil management solutions.

Wild pollinators are a key part of European biodiversity and provide a wide range of benefits to crops, wild plants, and human wellbeing. In Europe and globally, wild pollinators are facing multiple threats, however, the full extent of declines, their complex causes, and the most effective ways to respond to them are not well understood. Safeguard brings together world-leading researchers, NGOs, industry and policy experts to substantially contribute to Europe’s capacity to reverse the losses of wild pollinators. Safeguard will significantly expand current assessments of the status and trends of European wild pollinators including bees, butterflies, flies and other pollinating insects. We will use state-of-the-art models to predict the impacts of pressures on pollinators, paying particular attention to emerging threats, multiple and interacting drivers, long-term and cumulative effects, and multiple spatial scales. Safeguard will establish empirical research for a systematic multi-scale assessment of multiple pressures on pollinators and the context-dependent effectiveness of interventions. Working with our stakeholders, we will provide an improved understanding of the diverse values of European pollinators, and develop and test new approaches using multiple interventions to benefit pollinators, from field to landscape scales across agricultural, natural, and urban systems. We will co-develop with stakeholders an integrated assessment framework and tools that incorporate multiple types of evidence to address pollinator declines and direct mitigation strategies at the local, national, and EU levels. Safeguard will use the significant advance in knowledge to inform national, European, and global policies and decision-making. Finally, Safeguard will increase awareness of wild pollinators and their societal values with the public, policy makers, scientists, industry, and NGOs, to mobilise concerted multiple actions towards reversing pollinator declines across Europe.

SEALIVE aims at demonstrating innovative circular strategies for bio-based plastics in land and sea applications. The project will be driven by economically and technically sustainable business models based on materials with advanced properties, design for circularity techniques and end-of-life solutions. It will establish a partnership of raw material providers, convertors, end users, recyclers, policy experts, certification organizations and NGOs to demonstrate solutions within a shared vision for circular plastic strategies. Solutions for reusable, recyclable and biodegradable bio-based plastics to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds will be demonstrated in four pilot territories: Cyprus, Ireland, France and Denmark (or Non-European site). Innovative formulations based on PHAs, PLA and starch materials with advanced properties will be developed following recycling, biodegradability (marine and land) and composting standards. Design for circularity techniques (recyclable multi-layer single packaging materials, digital materials for traceability) and End-of-life solutions (high precision NIR-based mechanical recycling, controlled biodegradation/composting in natural and industrial conditions) will be upscaled at TRL6. Solutions will be applied to 8 end-applications with high potential for pollution reduction of soils and water media: rigid food containers, flexible packaging, agricultural films, fish crates, fishing nets and aquaculture mesh bags. Pre-normative research will be carried out to improve current standards for biodegradation, composting and recycling with regards to eco-toxicity, safety and influence of plastic ageing. Policy recommendations at EU and global level will be provided in order to build a common framework enabling pollution reduction of land and sea via sustainable bio-based plastics solutions.

The Social sciences & Humanities for Achieving a Responsible, Equitable and Desirable GREEN DEAL (SHARED GREEN DEAL) project brings together 22 leading organisations from across the EU including 8 universities, 3 research institutions, 8 network organisations and 3 SMEs. Our network partners cover core elements of the European Green Deal cross cutting priorities such as civil society, democracy, gender, energy, environment, circular economy and innovation. Our objectives directly address the call challenge with an aim to share actions, understandings, evidence, insights, responsibilities and benefits across stakeholders including policymakers and civil society. Issues of inclusivity and diversity are at the heart of the project to particularly account for disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups. SHARED GREEN DEAL will meet its objectives through a set of 11 workpackages. It is structured around lessons from a set of 6 social experiments around 6 priority Green Deal topics. Each social experiment will be delivered across 4 member states. Importantly we take a transdisciplinary approach, covering 19 social science and humanities disciplines, with multi-stakeholder, practice-based and policy-science expertise, including gender studies as a key component throughout. The output includes the development of tools (e.g. an online Green Deal policy tracker), as well as translating project findings into stakeholder-specific policy briefs and roundtable events. The partners are committed to continuing to host the transnational network set up post-project to ensure longevity and impact beyond the life of the project. SHARED GREEN DEAL is expected to deliver changes in societal practices and in the behaviour of individuals, communities, and public and private organisations. Through the development of effective new strategies, we will address behavioural change and long-term commitment, trust, social acceptance and buy-in from people, communities and organisations.

Erosion is a major threat to the ecosystemic services provided by soils, especially for nutrient cycling, provision of food, water purification, leading to significant on- and off-site effects that needs to be monitored, studied and prevented. EUROSION will tackle this issue by developing and demonstrating a dynamic soil erosion monitoring system able to continuously and precisely estimate soil erosion across spatial and temporal scales, considering water, wind and tillage effects in agricultural lands. This will be achieved with: (i) the creation of a robust multi-scale monitoring network composed of EUROSION partnership and representatives of complementary monitoring stakeholders, (ii) the elaboration of a monitoring scheme using harmonized monitoring methods allowing to collect up-to-date and reliable data, (iii) interrelated wind-water-tillage-related process-based erosion models capable of quantifying soil erosion from local to EU scale and across time and estimate the impact of management practices. These enhanced knowledge and innovative bricks will lead to the development of a user-friendly interactive and open-access platform for policymakers, researchers and monitoring stakeholders to visualize dynamic maps of erosion and conduct further research. Thus, EUROSION soil erosion monitoring system will deliver reliable estimates and validated indicators, on which the project will take stock to provide policymakers and agricultural land managers with recommendations on best management practices reducing soil erosion, supported by tailored cost-benefit analysis. EUROSION will also enable science-based trade-offs for the development and update of soil-related policies, including the new CAP. The project will run in close collaboration with local stakeholders, EU policymakers, and the JRC, and will be implemented in specific 12 Monitoring Nodes, representing European erosion hot spots and key agricultural areas.