International Research Consortium on (agricultural) soil carbon

Call updates

Oct 7, 2021 5:18:38 PM
The HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01 call was closed on 6 October. 57 proposals have been submitted in response to this call. The breakdown per topic is indicated below.

· HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01-07: 1

The evaluation results are expected to be communicated to the applicants end of January 2022.

Jun 22, 2021 4:20:11 PM
The submission session is now available for: HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01-07(HORIZON-CSA)

International Research Consortium on (agricultural) soil carbon
TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01-07

Programme: Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)
Call: Land, ocean and water for climate action (HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01)
Type of action: HORIZON-CSA HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions
Type of MGA: HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG]
Deadline model: single-stage
Planned opening date: 22 June 2021
Deadline date: 06 October 2021 17:00:00 Brussels time

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Activities should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• establishment of an International Research Consortium (IRC) on soil carbon and related issues;
• creation of a knowledge platform for sharing information on relevant research activities and results concerning methodologies for soil carbon balance monitoring, and practices for increasing soil carbon (e.g. carbon farming);
• better coordination of research activities and of methods for monitoring soil carbon stock changes at global level, thereby maximising complementarities and avoiding duplication of efforts;
• validated methods to support national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories;
• increased transparency with regard to progress towards commitments on soil carbon under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

On the long(er) term, activities will contribute to meeting international commitments concerning carbon sinks (Paris agreement), as well as to the European Green Deal overall objective to become the world's first climate neutral continent by 2050.

Scope:

Soil health is threatened both in Europe and globally by the effects of human activities and climate change. It is estimated that between one fourth and one third of global soils suffer from degradation. Soil degradation negatively impacts on food production, biodiversity or soil’s capacity to retain water and store carbon. Urgent action is needed to stabilise and increase soil carbon in soils, thereby also drawing down atmospheric CO2 and monitor its status in more reliable ways, at a range of scales from field to region and at a low cost. Yet, knowledge and methodological gaps exist in relation to measuring soil carbon stocks and changes in soil carbon as well as with regard to effective measures for increasing soil carbon. Furthermore, research and innovation (R&I) efforts are dispersed and results not widely known or taken up.

International research cooperation is needed to pool resources and scale up efforts for monitoring soil carbon stock changes, remote sensing and modelling. Activities should include

• building a formal research cooperation between EU and international partners on soil carbon. While initially focusing on carbon in agricultural soils, the partnership should progressively expand during the lifetime of the project to address also other land uses (e.g. forests, pastures, public areas for recreation including in urban settings);
• an analysis of results of on-going R&I and knowledge sharing through a single online knowledge platform with access to information and data from different existing repositories;
• building a roadmap for R&I priorities at international level based on identified knowledge gaps as well as identifying and developing joint flagship initiatives;
• establishing the methodological basis for a harmonised monitoring and verification of soil organic carbon balance.

For activities involving satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing, the selected project should use as much as possible Copernicus and/or Galileo / EGNOS (taking into account possible limitations on their use by international partners). Other data and services may be used additionally.

Activities should be implemented in synergy with major soil related European initiatives including the European Joint Programme EJP Soil and a planned mission in the area of Soil Health and Food.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.

Cross-cutting Priorities:
Socio-economic science and humanities