EU-Wide Advantages and Opportunities for the Horizon Europe RIA ‘Improved land suitability for soil health and sustainable biomass production’ (HORIZON-MISS-2025-05-SOIL-07)

1. Single Market Access

• Unlocks a market of 450 + million consumers for food, feed, biomaterials and nature-based carbon credits that comply with common EU rules on sustainability and labelling.

• Facilitates EU-wide roll-out of digital decision tools for land managers (one common language version can serve 27 Member States thanks to multilingual EU interfaces such as the CAP Network).

• Standardised EU certification (e.g. EU Organic, EU Taxonomy, forthcoming Carbon Removal Certification Framework) speeds uptake of project outputs in public procurement and private supply chains.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Consortiums can link Living Labs from diverse pedo-climatic zones (Nordic, Atlantic, Continental, Mediterranean, Boreal and Pannonian), creating a unique dataset that no single country could assemble.

• Easy mobility of researchers, agronomists and SMEs under freedom of movement provisions and mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

• Synergistic use of pan-European infrastructures (ICOS, eLTER RI, Copernicus, ERINHA, etc.) dramatically lowers individual partner costs.

3. Alignment with Key EU Strategies

• Directly delivers European Green Deal objectives on climate neutrality, Farm to Fork, Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the Soil Strategy for 2030.

• Contributes tangible indicators to the new Nature Restoration Law (area of restored peatlands, tonnes of carbon sequestered).

• Supports Circular Bioeconomy Action Plan by prioritising sustainable biomass value chains and cascading use principles.

• Leverages Digital Europe & Data Spaces by adopting FAIR data standards and linking to the EU Soil Data Space (EUSO, ESDAC).

4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Standards

• One coherent set of environmental and agricultural regulations (CAP, Nitrates Directive, LULUCF) reduces legal uncertainty for multi-country pilots.

• Common EU methodologies for soil monitoring (Joint Research Centre guidelines) allow cross-border comparability of KPIs.

• Harmonised EU rules on state-aid and public procurement make it easier for public bodies in different countries to buy resulting decision tools or services.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• Direct link to more than 100 Mission Soil Living Labs & Lighthouses; rapid feedback loops from practitioners accelerate TRL advance.

• Participation in EIT Food, Climate-KIC and EIT Raw Materials accelerators provides business mentoring and market entry support.

• Collaboration with EU Digital Innovation Hubs enables testing of AI/ML soil models on high-performance computing clusters.

6. Funding Synergies & Blending Opportunities

• Results can be up-scaled with CAP Strategic Plans (eco-schemes, Agri-Environment-Climate Measures) estimated at €50 billion 2023-27.

• LIFE programme can fund post-project replication pilots for peatland re-wetting and biodiversity gains.

• InvestEU and EIB’s Natural Capital Financing Facility can provide patient capital for large-scale biomass infrastructure.

• Synchronisation with Interreg transnational programmes (e.g. Baltic, MED) supports regional cross-border value chains.

7. Scale, Replicability & Systemic Impact

• Pan-EU modelling outputs create a ‘digital twin’ of soil–biomass interactions that Member States can embed in national CAP advisory systems.

• Multi-actor engagement ensures practices are adoptable from small family farms in Spain to state forests in Finland, fostering cohesion.

• By integrating socio-economic data, the project can quantify EU-level job creation and rural development impacts, strengthening policy uptake.

8. Strategic Recommendations to Maximise EU-Level Value

1. Build a geographically balanced consortium with at least 12 Member States, ensuring representation of all main bio-geo-climatic regions.

2. Formalise data-sharing MoUs with EUSO and SoilWise at proposal stage to guarantee interoperability and long-term hosting.

3. Create a Policy Uptake Board with DG AGRI, DG ENV, DG CLIMA and the Committee of the Regions to streamline regulatory feedback.

4. Reserve ≥10 % of budget for alignment workshops with other Mission Soil clusters and CBE JU projects to avoid duplication.

5. Prepare CAP-compatible ‘practice abstracts’ and decision support plugins that can be immediately uploaded to the EU Farm Sustainability Tool (FaST).

Bottom Line

Operating at EU scale multiplies scientific excellence, market reach, policy relevance and investment leverage. The grant therefore offers a unique platform for delivering soil-positive biomass production systems that can be standardised, financed and deployed across the entire Union.