Living labs to enhance soil health in Continental, Black Sea, Pannonian and Steppic biogeographical regions
Supporting the implementation of the Soil Deal for Europe Mission · HORIZON-RIA · Needs partners
What this call funds
This call funds projects that set up 'living labs' - long-term, real-world collaborations between farmers, researchers, local authorities and other stakeholders - to test and scale up practical solutions for improving soil health in specific European regions (Continental, Black Sea, Pannonian and Steppic). Funded projects should establish multiple living lab sites, measure soil health improvements over time, and design ways to keep the labs running financially after EU funding ends. Two large projects will be funded, each focusing on a different biogeographical region.
agriculture agritech · environmental monitoring · biodiversity · circular economy · climate adaptation · regional development
Who wins this
A multi-partner consortium spanning research organisations, public bodies, SMEs and civil society across at least three EU/associated countries, able to coordinate multiple real-life soil health living labs in a targeted biogeographical region over several years.
Could you win this call?
We read your site to see what you build.
The call in detail
- Indicative grant size
- €12M
- Funding model
- Budget-based — reimbursement of actual eligible costs
- Submission
- Two-stage submission (short outline first, full proposal if invited)
- Cut-off dates (2)
- 8 Apr 2027 · 14 Sep 2027
- Type of action
- HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
- Partners
- Required. The call asks for a consortium — from 3 countries.
- Support to third parties
- Beneficiaries may grant financial support to third parties (e.g. farmers, landowners, SMEs, civil society) to involve them in living labs, up to a maximum of EUR 60,000 per third party.
- Also required
- Proposals must clearly focus on either the Continental biogeographical region or one/more of Black Sea, Pannonian, and Steppic regions, with living labs located in at least three different Member States/Associated Countries; the multi-actor approach is mandatory; second-stage evaluation threshold is 12 overall with a minimum of 4 for Excellence.
- Eligible countries (45)
- Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, IL, TR, UA, RS, MK, ME, AL, BA, XK, GE, AM, MD, TN, NZ
Read the full conditions from the official call ›
General conditions 1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes. Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. 2. Eligible Countries described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide. 3. Other Eligible Conditions Proposals must apply the multi-actor approach. See definition of the multi-actor approach in the introduction to this work programme part. described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds Proposals must focus either on the Continental biogeographical region or on one or more of the following three biogeographical regions: Black Sea, Pannonian and Steppic. This means that the majority of the living labs of each proposal must be located either within the Continental biogeographical region or within one or more of the three biogeographical regions (Black Sea, Pannonian and Steppic). Proposals must clearly indicate their focus. To ensure a balanced portfolio covering different biogeographical regions, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those that are the highest ranked within Black Sea, Pannonian and Steppic biogeographical regions, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.[[ Biogeographical regions in Europe according to the European Environmental Agency.]] are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes The overall threshold for the second stage evaluation will be 12, with a minimum threshold of 4 for the ‘Excellence’ criterion’. are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual. 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties to facilitate active involvement of smaller actors (e.g. land managers and owners such as farmers, SMEs or civil societies) in one or more of the living labs of the project. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants (further to calls or, if duly justified, without a call for proposals). The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 60 000. described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes. Specific conditions described in the topic conditions
Who has won calls like this
No past winners are recorded for this call family yet.