European soils face pressing conditions for their health. An alarming 60-70% of EU soils are considered unhealthy, attributed to factors such as pollution, urbanization, and intensive agriculture, further exacerbated by climate change. This degradation results in economic, societal, and environmental repercussions, including decreased land productivity, migration, land abandonment, and biodiversity loss. Addressing this challenge necessitates holistic measures, especially since soil restoration can take centuries. The project initiative, aligning with various EU policies, emphasizes the importance of comprehensive soil restoration efforts. It plans to establish six Soil Health Living Labs (SHELLs) across diverse EU climatic zones, including Sweden, Spain, Spain-France, Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria. These labs are envisioned as innovation hubs, tailored to address the EU's specific soil health objectives, notably objectives 4, 6, and 8. Through collaborative efforts within these SHELLs, the goal is to develop, test, and validate potential solutions, ensuring scalability beyond their immediate regions. iCOSHELLs places a strong emphasis on inclusive stakeholder engagement, from researchers to landowners. Its systematic approach includes building stakeholder capacities, bridging gaps between science and practical applications, deepening understanding of soil indicators, replicating effective soil recovery methods, and championing supportive soil health policies. Additionally, iCOSHELLs seeks to redefine the concept of Living Labs (LLs). Challenging the traditional model, which often revolves around isolated research entities, iCOSHELLs envisions LLs rooted in co-creation, broad engagement, and real-world application. This transformative vision aims to evolve existing SHELLs into standardized, widely recognized labs, setting a foundational blueprint for future LLs. Moreover, as a comprehensive soil data repository, iCOSHELLs promotes collaboration, ensuring replicable.

Climate change and environmental degradation have been challenging Europe and the whole world. The EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 is a comprehensive, ambitious and long-term plan to preserve nature and reverse the ecosystem degradation. Grapevine (Vitis spp.) is one of the major fruit crops worldwide, and although viticulture is a leading sector of the EU agro-industrial economy, it is the cropping system with the highest use of agrochemicals and with a high risk of biodiversity loss. SHIELD4GRAPE (S4G) will adopt sustainable agroecological approaches addressed to improve the resilience of the viticultural system against pest diseases in a context of climate change. The S4G consortium brings together the best excellences in the sector; it is multi- and interdisciplinary, collaborative and well representative of different EU biogeographical regions. S4G will i) exploit grapevine biodiversity and identify new resilience traits; ii) implement breeding activities, including new breeding techniques and mutagenesis, iii) introduce safer and more sustainable strategies against pathogens. Demonstration fields will be set up in all the most important EU regions interested in viticulture to improve the efficacy of applied integrated pest management protocols in combination with the new resilient genotypes. S4G aims to support farmers and researchers, to provide advisory services and actors in value chains by establishing an interrelated community that will facilitate exchange of knowledge and of the best practices at different levels and socio-economic resilience. S4G impacts will add value to the wine heritage of the EU regions by reducing chemical treatments (at least by 50%), using strategies that are less hazardous to the environment and favouring beneficial organisms. S4G will contribute to safeguard the territory (particularly those areas with a high concentration of vineyards), human health, farmers, the population living in grape-growing areas and consumers

Adopting effective technologies and practices to improve the management of N/P flows remains a challenge. Additionally, the local dimension of N/P sources and the diversity of water and soil ecosystems across different locations limit the impact of uniform policy measures and related governance models. Addressing this is a priority of EU environmental governance. NPower will create four Regional Clusters (RCs), to guarantee representativity, replicability and impact of developed solutions at EU level: RC1 in Spain (representing South Europe), RC2 in Belgium (Central Europe), RC3 in Finland (North Europe), and RC4 in Ireland (West/Insular Europe). We will act in the paradigmatic region of Murcia, Spain, in which the main challenges of the management of N/P flows are represented, and involve the other 3 RCs to assure the solutions developed are applicable in as many European realities as possible, helping restore ecosystems across the EU. To do so, NPower will 1) model N/P flows across the 5 key sectors to create a regional N/P budget for RC1, 2) demonstrate 6 recovery technologies, 8 recovered fertilizers and 20 BMPs within and among covered sectors that reduce and promote circular economy schemes, 3) design and showcase region-tailored governance measures to halt air, water, and soil N/P pollution, 4) guarantee EU representativity via knowledge transfer among RCs, and 5) disseminate effective N/P limiting solutions to practitioners and policy makers at local, regional, national and EU level. NPower solutions will be assessed on their environmental, socio-economic and behavioural effect. NPower will avoid the emission of 483 k ton N and 2.1 M ton P, saving the EU 14.3B€. Guidance for practice and recommendations will contribute to harmonised regional policies and regulations in line with the key EU directives and strategies (Water Framework Directive, Nitrates Directive, European Green Deal, Clean Environment & Zero Pollution ambition, and Bioeconomy Strategy.

ARACNE project focuses on the cultural heritage of the European silk production and its preservation, protection and valorisation; it aims at revigorating traditional skills through the adaptive reuse of the common cultural and artistic legacy and at shaping a silk-linked European cultural identity. Literally and metaphorically a thread that has woven the European culture, silk greatly contributed to the development of the European economy and arts. The production and the past and present development of the silk sector can be again the common basis for a future European Silk Route intended as a cultural itinerary across Europe. To create a wide and well-connected network that, starting from the historical path followed by Marco Polo in his travels to East, even includes the routes of production and commercialization of silk in Europe in the following centuries, we aim to: • Bring back silk production in vogue by reconstructing a resilient and innovative silk ecosystem that retraces the concerned European countries and promotes traditions, architecture, and both tangible and intangible heritages. The consolidation of an European Silk Route will encourage links and shared activities among European cities and regions, specifically among museums, study and research centres to strengthen the preservation and protection of their culture and promote innovations in production and trade; • Contribute to improve skills and competitiveness of silk-related European Cultural and Creative Industries through the renewal, co-development and the implementation of human-centered and place-specific silk-based cultural products, processes and service innovations, leveraging on digital applications and cutting-edge technologies, to foster the transition to more sustainable business models, and promote economic and social growth, and strengthen the reputation of European countries abroad. The project will also meet the Green Deal and New European Bauhaus macro-objectives.