Citizen engagement for sustainable land management through local and regional authorities

Activities under this topic contribute to the implementation of the Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’, in particular to its specific objective 8 “improve soil literacy in society”, and to strengthening the capacities of local and regional authorities in line with the proposal for a Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience.

Activities should also contribute to meeting the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 on Life on land and SDG 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Substantially increased awareness and understanding among citizens and local and regional policy makers of the value of soils, soil health challenges and drivers (both bio-physical and socio-economic dimensions) across Europe.
• An increased number of regions and municipalities across Europe have adopted Territorial Management Agreements^[1] co-designed with citizens and stakeholders to foster sustainable land management practices. ​​​​
• Local and regional authorities^[2] have improved access to capacity building activities on how to implement solutions for the protection and restoration of soil health and enhance citizen engagement in sustainable land management.

Citizen engagement is one of the building blocks of the Mission Soil but despite the advances in recognising the importance of soil health and the momentum for soil in the political agenda, active participation in soil protection and restoration and understanding of soil health importance often remain limited among non-experts. Activities under this topic should involve local and regional authorities in the protection and restoration of soil health and establish participatory processes that take into account citizens’ priorities. Local and regional participatory processes should result in Territorial Management Agreements^[3] aimed at the protection and restoration of soil health for the provision of ecosystem services, including biodiversity, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Proposed activities should:

• Provide training and technical support to public authorities to design and run inclusive and effective participatory processes at local and regional level that lead to the adoption of Territorial Management Agreements to foster sustainable land management and contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
• Launch the implementation of at least 40 Territorial Management Agreements, one per local or regional authority involved, and provide guidelines and resources to sustain and monitor their implementation in the long term.
• Organise capacity-building activities for representatives of local and regional authorities including training, peer-to-peer learning and knowledge-sharing activities to promote the adoption of solutions for the restoration of soil health at their level of governance.

Proposals should actively involve local and regional authorities as beneficiaries or through the use of financial support to third parties. If making use of financial support to third parties, the support should be provided in the form of grants following an open call of European dimension for local or regional authorities to run participatory processes to co-design with citizens Territorial Management Agreements and launch their implementation. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 60 000.

The local and regional authorities involved in the project are expected to engage citizens and stakeholders at the local and regional level for the protection and restoration of soil health.

Proposals should bring together expertise on environmental and soil sciences, as well as transdisciplinary expertise on spatial planning and social sciences and humanities (SSH), including gender studies, to design and organise training and successful capacity building activities for local and regional authorities and support them in the implementation of effective participatory processes. The engagement of citizen and stakeholders in the design of Territorial Management Agreements should be representative of the local community and stakeholders and be inclusive. Thus, proposals must incorporate gender perspectives and give attention to the inclusion of people in vulnerable situations.

Proposals should include dedicated tasks and appropriate resources for coordination measures and joint activities with other relevant projects and initiatives funded under the Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe”, including engagement with the relevant cluster activities.

Proposals should demonstrate a route towards open access, longevity, sustainability and interoperability of knowledge and outputs through close collaboration with the European Union Soil Observatory (EUSO) and SoilWise.

[1] Territorial Management Agreements is the terminology used by the Horizon Europe project Healthy Municipal Soils (HuMuS). For consistency, proposals should use the same terminology.

[2] In the context of this topic, regional authorities refer to legal entities responsible for managing regions, geographical areas at sub-national level, defined as NUTS 2 and 3, corresponding to actual administrative units with their own representation/government. For more information about NUTS (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics), see https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts

[3] Territorial Management Agreements are co-designed pacts between a public authority, relevant stakeholders and citizens aimed at the protection and restoration of soil health. The Agreement should define roles, responsibilities and actions of the parties involved, as well as monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to keep track of the progress made towards the desired results.