Assessment of Soil Health in Africa

Topic updates

31 January 2025

17 October 2024

Flash information on proposal numbers

The HORIZON-MISS-2024-SOIL-01 call was closed on the 8th October 2024.

137 proposals were submitted in response to this call. The breakdown per topic is indicated below:

HORIZON-MISS-2024-SOIL-01-09 (Assessment of Soil Health in Africa): 12 proposals

Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in January 2025.

Assessment of Soil Health in Africa

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-MISS-2024-SOIL-01-09

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme: Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)

Call: Research and Innovation and other actions to support the implementation of Mission 'A Soil Deal for Europe' (HORIZON-MISS-2024-SOIL-01)

Type of action: HORIZON-IA HORIZON Innovation Actions

Type of MGA: HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG]

Status: Forthcoming

Deadline model: single-stage

Planned Opening Date: 08 May 2024

Deadline dates: 08 October 2024 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Activities under this topic will advance the international dimension of the Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ and contribute to its specific objectives, in particular objective 4 "reduce soil pollution and enhance restoration". Activities will also contribute to the EU-Africa Partnership on Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture, African Union strategies, initiatives and action plans relevant for soil health and support global commitments and SDGs, in particular in the areas of sustainable agriculture, food and nutrition security, biodiversity, and climate.

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

• Enhanced and accessible data for policy makers and intergovernmental organisations to inform a continental 'convergence of evidence' map that indicates areas in Africa that are likely to be affected by soil degradation processes (as has been implemented for Europe with the EUSO Soil Health Dashboard).
• Enhanced access to knowledge that can be used by a wide range of stakeholders to inform soil and land management policies and practices, prioritize areas for intervention and research and development, and support improved advisory services for farmers in Africa.
• Improved datasets are available on soil threats/properties which will contribute to the development of an interactive Soil Health Dashboard for Africa.

Scope:

Africa has a large degree of degraded soils, suboptimal land use, population growth and increasingly urban population. These factors are contributing to increased competition and pressures on land (less land per farmer, less quality land per farmer, climate change, biodiversity loss) resulting in unfavourable economics of farming and ecosystem management.

The IPBES report on land degradation and restoration ^[1] highlights huge economic cost of land and soil degradation, including increasing cost of no action. Soil health is key to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Therefore, holistic systems approaches are needed for addressing multiple context specific soil health related challenges at country and regional level. In addition, evidence driven analytical framework is urgently needed for adequate soil health priority setting and planning at regional and national level, alignment of partners and investments.

Proposed activities should:

• Develop a scalable Africa-wide soil health dashboard, building on the experience of the EUSO Soil health dashboard, leveraging existing data (e.g., Africa Soil Information System AfSIS ^[2]) and other EU funded projects such as Soils 4 Africa.
• Strategic collection of new data to fill soil knowledge gaps (such as pollution, compaction, biodiversity, nutrient status, acidity/acidification, soil organic matter, soil erosion, soil water) and improve the accuracy and functionality of the dashboard through consultative engagement with national stakeholders.
• Identify critical local/regional thresholds for key soil health descriptors.
• Develop roadmaps to highlight trends in soil health responses to policy instruments.
• Support participating African countries in the development of national soil health strategies in at least 8 countries, to better manage soil resources for agriculture and the environment. In developing the strategies, projects should create use cases and provide training opportunities for the interpretation and use of data.

Proposals should demonstrate a route towards open access, longevity, sustainability and interoperability of knowledge and outputs through close collaboration with the Joint Research Centre’s EU Soil Observatory (EUSO) and SoilWISE and ensure interoperability between the dashboard and other databases (such as national soil information services or the Horizon 2020 project Soils4Africa).

Proposals should include a dedicated task and appropriate resources to build on the work of Soils4Africa and other projects on soil information that are being funded by other entities (e.g., ICARDA), including philanthropic organisations, particularly where there is geographical or thematic complementarity. The Consortium is invited to propose a long-term sustainability plan for the dashboard in Africa.

While having a focus on Africa, activities could tap into international expertise (particularly from Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) as deemed necessary.

[1]Assessment Report on Land Degradation and Restoration

[2]https://www.isric.org/projects/africa-soil-information-service-afsis

General conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex Aand 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 Bof 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 eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes

Due to the scope of this topic, international organisations with headquarters in Africa are exceptionally eligible for funding.

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes

5.Evaluation and award:

• Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex Dof the Work Programme General Annexes

• Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual

• 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: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes

Specific conditions

7. Specific conditions: described in the specific topic of the Work Programme

Start submission

The submission system is planned to be opened on the date stated on the topic header.

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