European Joint Programme on Soil - First external Call

Knowledge gaps in the area of SOC sequestration need to be closed, e.g. by developing soil management options which help to protect existing stocks of soil carbon and store additional C through sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere. Effective CO2 sequestration can help reduce GHG emissions thereby helping to fulfil the objectives of the European Green Deal.

Another objective is to make shift from those agricultural practices that contributes to soil degradation, towards, more sustainable practices and methods. This not only addresses sustainable production but also healthy environment, which can be achieved by, enhancing knowledge about biodiversity, and understanding functionalities and interactions in soils. Strong population growth combined with climate change challenges have placed food security high on the global agenda and therefore it is one of the key elements of the EU’s farm to fork strategy.

Thus, interested project consortia should apply to one of the three topics:

• Understanding SOC sequestration (stabilization, storage and persistence)
• Soil biodiversity: status, and role in ecosystem services provided by soils
• Site-specific or landscape-scale approaches to improve sustainability, resilience, health, and productivity of soils

Project summary must be submitted and coordinator and partners must registered via online submission tool until 25th June 2021.

Read more about the call for proposal on the EJP SOIL website.