The DUST project will develop and operationalise novel participatory instruments for proactive and strategic citizen engagement in sustainability transitions. It will combine design-led territorial tools with digital tools for citizen deliberation at scale. The project addresses a defining societal and democratic challenge for Europe, which is to hear the voices of least engaged communities, especially in structurally weak regions dependent on energy-intensive industries, which will be most affected by transitions towards a more sustainable future. Building on the concept of ‘active subsidiarity’, the project will employ an innovative mix of research methods, and experimental citizen participation, to understand the determinants of participation in decision-making on sustainability transitions at different levels of government, and to develop effective policy recommendations for inclusive engagement of civil society.

SPADES’ mission is to develop, test and implement soil-inclusive spatial planning strategies to support the transition towards soil health in Europe. Soil health is highly under pressure and the soil’s ability to perform essential ecosystem services should be improved to cope with pressures such as climate change and need such as a healthy living environment. Spatial planning and design are practices that, when enriched by soil care, can enhance the current status of soils and support societal challenges and needs, while avoiding unwanted trade-offs towards other areas, generations or functions. SPADES will therefor provide a comprehensive state of the art on both planning and design practices, as on soil instruments. To be able to make a transition in spatial planning and design towards healthy soils a fundamental understanding of the current mechanisms is key. SPADES will develop integrative instruments and improve the information basis and brokerage to bring the spatial planning and design field and soil sector together. This will contribute to the methodological basis. SPADES will work in 17 pilots in 10 member states, covering a broad range of land uses (urban, peri-urban and rural areas), time and spatial scales, and soil and planning challenges. This is done together with local practitioners and policy makers to develop fit-for-purpose soil-inclusive spatial strategies to support different goals such as land degradation neutrality and no net land take. The SPADES instruments will be presented in such a way (manual and navigator) so that they can be found by the right user, at the right phase of the planning and design process, and for the right purpose. SPADES supports soil literacy (by capacity building and communication, dissemination and exploitation activities) to a broad range of target groups to enable current practice to improve. To make this most effective, SPADES case partners are involved in these CDE and training activities.

PLUS Change brings together 23 institutions from across Europe including 5 Universities, 5 research institutes, 3 stakeholder network organisations, 1 performing arts collective, and 9 practice partners representing regional planning and land management authorities and organisations. The objectives directly address the call with an aim to create land use strategies and decision-making processes that meet climate, biodiversity and human well-being objectives of sustainability, and to develop interventions that leverage political, economic, societal, material and cultural contexts to achieve these strategies, by involving actors at multiple decision-making levels (individual, land management, planning, policy). Activities include land use modelling (including historical and future trajectories of change), systems mapping, causal loop diagrams, performing arts approaches, randomized controlled trials of behaviour change, sociological surveys, and policy and governance reviews. All activities brought together in an integrated research design that draws on their different contributions to a holistic approach to understand multi-scale land use systems across a diversity of socioeconomic and biogeographical contexts, and create usable tools for land managers, users, planners and policy makers. The project is anchored in, and integrated through, 11 location-based cases for co-creation, and in a high-level multiplier cluster to identify challenges and impacts at EU and Global levels. Outputs include recommendations of co-designed and tested interventions to unlock behavioural, structural and procedural changes to achieve identified land use strategies; and a toolkit to support land use planners in enacting these interventions, including knowledge training, a planning dashboard and simulation tools, and methods for engaging citizens and land managers in behaviour change.

In the face of rapid urbanization, with 70% of the global population expected to live in cities by 2050 , urban soils have become critical in providing essential ecosystem services (ESs) supporting healthy urban ecosystems. Among the ESs urban soils are essential for regulating the carbon and water cycles, mitigating flooding risk and heat islands, provide provisioning services, such as supporting biodiversity and urban food production, and enhancing urban green spaces that improve mental and physical well-being, and landscape aesthetics. Despite their importance, urban soils are often degraded by anthropogenic activities, including sealing, contamination with heavy metals, and compaction, which hinders their ability to provide ESs. This degradation poses risks to human and environmental health and worsens the effects of natural disasters like floods and heatwaves. URSOILL aims to address these challenges by establishing a network of five Living Labs (LLs) across EU cities to serve as interactive platforms where local stakeholders collaborate to co-create, test, and implement innovative solutions for urban soil restoration. Each LL will focus on improving soil health, enhancing ecosystem services, and promoting sustainable land management through the use of innovative technologies and nature-based solutions (NBSs). URSOILL will adopt a multi-actor, interdisciplinary approach, engaging different stakeholders. By placing urban communities at the core, the project ensures that the solutions developed are not only scientifically validated but also socially and economically viable. The co-creation of solutions in real-world settings will allow for effective knowledge transfer, fostering long-term cooperation and facilitating the replication of successful practices in other urban areas. By restoring urban soils and enhancing their capacity to deliver essential ESs, URSOILL will help cities become more climate-resilient, sustainable, and livable.

UP2030 aims to guide cities through the socio-technical transitions required to meet their climate neutrality ambitions. It will do so by enabling a quantum leap from a ´business as usual´, project-by-project decarbonisation approach to a vision-driven, strategy-based approach that is anchored on sound projects and renewed policy development. The approach uses urban planning and design as a vehicle to create better connected, more compact, net-zero neighbourhoods in the city pilots – i.e. neighbourhoods that promote liveability and, through designing with intent, promote mitigation action. Unlike fragmented innovation processes that focus on the deployment of a specific solution to achieve incremental progress, UP2030 proposes that cities should themselves be at the centre of the innovation approach to drive transformative change. The project develops the 5UP methodological framework that supports cities in (i) UP-dating those policies, codes, regulations that need to be left behind to make room for the new vision (ii) UP-skilling, through building the capacities of the entire city stakeholder ecosystem that shall deliver actions (iii) UP-grading, through the development of solution prototypes (digital and physical) at selected neighbourhoods, (iv) UP-scaling to achieve city-wide impact by shaping the enabling governance arrangements and matching project portfolios to financial resources, and (v) UP-taking, by engaging with the Mission and sharing best practices across European cities. Inclusive participation is key throughout the project’s full cycle of activities so that real needs of communities are reflected in the city-specific visions, and co-designed interventions maximise delivery of co-benefits. As such, UP2030 will (a) have a measured positive impact on spatial justice in the pilots, and (b) give the opportunity to citizens to participate in the transition by becoming agents of change themselves through their sustainable behavioural shifts.