Horizon Europe 2025 EU Missions: Soil Deal for Europe
Funding available through Horizon Europe to achieve healthy soils for Europe by 2050, with up to €11m for the largest projects.
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
06/05/2025
Registration Closes
24/09/2025
Award
Up to €11m per project, which can fund up to 100% of project costs depending on call type.
Organisation
Horizon Europe
As part of the vision to achieve healthy soils by 2050, outlined in the EU soil strategy for 2030, the European Commission proposed a Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience, addressing key threats such as erosion, floods and landslides, loss of soil organic matter, salinisation, contamination, compaction, sealing, and loss of soil biodiversity. The Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ is recognized as a key instrument for its implementation, aiming to establish 100 living labs and lighthouses by 2030. The Mission is structured around four operational objectives:
- build capacities and the knowledge base for soil stewardship;
- co-create and upscale place-based innovations to improve soil health in all places;
- develop an integrated EU soil monitoring system and track progress towards soil health;
- engage with the soil user community and society at large.
Significant investments via the 2021-2024 Work Programmes have advanced the Mission’s objectives, establishing a solid infrastructure to support its projects and objectives. This has led to major progress in the EU soil health monitoring framework, with data and knowledge from Mission projects feeding into the EU Soil Observatory and the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), aiding Member States in implementing the future Directive. The first EUwide soil health observatory dashboard, launched in March 2023, provides 19 key soil health parameters and maps degradation processes across Europe. Efforts continue to develop costeffective indicators and methodologies for monitoring soil health at local, regional, and EU levels, leveraging digital and earth observation technologies.
Potential applicants are invited to sign up for the EU Missions Info Days on 22-23 May and the related Brokerage Events on 26-27 May.
Horizon Europe Cluster 5: Climate, Energy and Mobility and Cluster 6: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment also include calls related to this topic.
UK organisations and businesses can apply for Horizon Europe funding, working as part of a three-country consortium with at least one member from within the EU (see “Who can apply?” below). If you are interested in one of the calls and would like to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s European Programmes team.
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In line with Horizon Europe, all the actions supported by this call are open to actors from EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries.
Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in Horizon Europe actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:
- at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State;
- and at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries (this includes the UK).
Our European team can help you find eligible partners to form a consortium.
There may be further eligibility conditions for specific topics. Please check the Work Programme and contact our team to ensure your eligibility before applying.
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Potential applicants are invited to sign up for the EU Missions Info Days on 22 May (8.30am-5pm CET / 7.30am-4pm GMT) and 23 May (8.30am-3pm CET / 7.30am-2pm GMT), and the related Brokerage Events on 26-27 May.
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Single-stage calls with a deadline of 30 Sep 2025:
- Living Labs for soil remediation and green redevelopment of brownfields – c.€12m for a single project
- Social, economic and cultural drivers, and costs of land degradation – total budget €11m, c.€5.5m per project
- Increasing environmental resilience through a better knowledge and management of the soil-water nexus – c.€6m for a single project
- Developing transfer functions for the Soil Monitoring Law – c.€6m for a single project
- EU global footprint on soils – c.€6m for a single project
- Quantifying the impact of farming practices on soil health in arable lands – c.€6m for a single project
- Improved land suitability for soil health and sustainable biomass production – c.€6m for a single project
- Support to the operation and further development of soil-health science-policy interfaces and national soil-health hubs – c.€6m for a single project
- Citizen engagement for sustainable land management through local and regional authorities – c.€5m for a single project
- Network on carbon farming and emissions reductions for agricultural and forest lands – c.€3m for a single project
- Soil Salinity in Europe: Drivers, indicators, current levels and temporal changes – c.€6m for a single project
Two-stage calls, first-stage deadline 4 Sep 2025, second-stage deadline 18 Feb 2026:
- Living labs to enhance soil health in Continental, Boreal and Alpine biogeographical regions – total budget €36m, c.€12m per project
- Broadening the living labs approach for soil health in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) – total budget €12m, c.€6m per project
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These funded actions will also be available as part of the Mission:
Mission Implementation platform – procurement (2025), €9.93m for a single project
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The following cross-cutting actions will also be funded as part of all EU Missions, opening in Dec 2025 with a closing date of 31 Mar 2026:
- Strengthening skills and capacity for the deployment of EU Missions – c.€1m for a single project
- Understanding and overcoming barriers to the scale-up of innovations supporting EU Missions – c.€2m for a single project
- Advancing lead markets and proof-of-concept for deep tech solutions contributing to EU Missions – total budget €8m, c.€4m per project
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