Join the SOILL Living Labs & Lighthouses network

Create your account on SOILL Hub

WHO: Anyone 

WHEN: At any time 

TIME REQUIRED: Around 5 minutes

Create a free account on the SOILL Hub to register your initiative. Explore the Hub and make the most of its features: join groups, attend events, submit questions to the Helpdesk, access resources and connect with the network. If you already have an account, simply log in.

To create an account:

• click “Register” and complete the account creation form;
• provide your name, email address and other basic details; and
• confirm your registration.

Once registered, you will receive a one-time PIN code by email or text message (SMS) each time you log in. 

Enter this code to access the Hub securely. This step ensures compliance with security and data protection requirements.

You do not need any documents or prior preparation to create an account. A short video tutorial is available to guide you through the process

Create your account

 

Register your initiative

WHO: Your initiative 

WHEN: At any time 

TIME REQUIRED: Around 10 minutes

Create a free account or log in to the SOILL Hub and select “Register your initiative”. Registration includes a short pre-assessment that helps SOILL understand what your initiative does and whether it has the potential to proceed towards recognition as a European or Emerging Soil Living Lab or Lighthouse. 

You will be asked for information about your initiative, including:

• its geographical area and land-use context;
• the soil-health challenges and Mission Soil objectives it addresses;
• the stakeholders involved;
• its co-creation, testing and demonstration activities;
• for Living Labs, the sites involved in the initiative;
• its governance, partnerships and funding; and
• links to a website or other public information, where available.

You do not need to prepare a formal application or upload a detailed proposal. The pre-assessment takes approximately 10 minutes.

Register your initiative 

 

If your initiative meets the invitation criteria following the pre-assessment, you will be invited to complete the full SOILL Monitoring and Evaluation. 

The Monitoring and Evaluation looks at the different dimensions needed for a Living Lab or Lighthouse to operate effectively, improve soil health and generate impact.  

It follows the SOILL Monitoring and Evaluation methodological framework, co-designed among others with the Mission Secretariat, with specific evaluation chapters reflecting the characteristics of Living Labs and Lighthouses. 

Before start

Before starting, you will receive practical support to prepare for the assessment, including dedicated webinars, how-to guides covering both the IT and content aspects, and dedicated Q&A sessions.

The assessment itself combines two complementary components:

• Quantitative self-assessment - completed online and consisting almost entirely of closed questions structured around the relevant evaluation chapters.
• Qualitative assessment - based on open-ended questions that complement the quantitative self-assessment, allowing you to provide further explanation and narrative and additional supporting evidence. Supporting materials can include documents, graphs, photos, links, and other evidence relevant to your activities and achievements. 

Together, the two components provide a comprehensive picture of your initiative, its current development and its alignment with the Mission Soil criteria, forming the basis for the evaluation and labelling in Step 3 as described below. 

Five evaluation chapters for Living Labs

For Living Labs, the assessment covers five evaluation chapters:

• Strategy - how the Living Lab is governed and organised for the longer term, including its governance, business model and collaboration ecosystem.
• Operations - the people, processes, participatory methods, equipment and infrastructure that enable the Living Lab to operate and carry out its activities.
• Openness - how the Living Lab works through innovation partnerships, projects and processes, and how ownership and use of results are managed.
• Users & Reality - how users and stakeholders are involved and how activities are embedded in real-life contexts throughout the innovation process.
• Impact & Monitoring - how the Living Lab monitors its own development and soil health, assesses its impact, and supports the scale-up and wider uptake of solutions. 

Two evaluation chapters for Living Labs

For Lighthouses, the assessment starts with General Information about the site and its context, followed by two evaluation chapters:

• Strategy & Operations - the longer-term sustainability and operation of the Lighthouse, including its business model, human resources, collaboration ecosystem, equipment and infrastructure.
• Impact & Monitoring - how the Lighthouse tests and demonstrates solutions, provides training and advisory services, contributes to awareness and soil literacy, monitors soil health and its own activities, demonstrates impact, and supports the wider uptake and scale-up of solutions. 

Timeline

The Monitoring and Evaluation is completed during the first quarter of each year, with the annual submission deadline in March. You should allow sufficient time to gather input from the relevant people involved in your initiative and collect the information and supporting evidence needed for the assessment. 

The time required will vary depending on your initiative and on how readily available the necessary information and supporting evidence are. As a general indication, completing the assessment may take from around half a day to up to a few days.

The information submitted provides the basis for SOILL to assess your initiative against the relevant criteria, determine its labelling outcome and identify its strengths, areas for improvement and development opportunities.

Please note: your complete M&E assessment responses are not made public. Only information agreed for publication through your initiative profile, the SOILL Atlas or SOILL Living Labs & Lighthouses catalogue is shared publicly.

Once the Monitoring and Evaluation submission closes, your assessment is reviewed by SOILL evaluators against the criteria of the relevant Living Lab or Lighthouse framework.

The evaluation is carried out by independent SOILL evaluators, selected following a conflict-of-interest clearance process and bound by confidentiality and non-disclosure requirements. Evaluators first assess each initiative individually against the agreed criteria and scoring methodology, before taking part in a consensus process to reach the final assessment and labelling outcome.

Based on the results, your initiative will receive one of the following labels:

• European Soil Living Lab or Lighthouse – your initiative demonstrates full alignment with the relevant Mission Soil criteria.
• Emerging Soil Living Lab or Lighthouse – your initiative demonstrates relevant characteristics and potential but still needs to strengthen some aspects to reach full alignment.

Following the evaluation, you will receive an individual feedback report presenting the results of the assessment, including identified strengths, areas for improvement and recommendations for further development. 

Following labelling, your initiative is formally onboarded into the SOILL Living Labs & Lighthouses network.

As part of the onboarding, SOILL will guide you through the network, the SOILL Hub and the opportunities and support available to you, and ensure that your initiative is correctly represented across the relevant SOILL channels, including its public profile and the SOILL Living Labs & Lighthouses catalogue.

From this point, you can take  part actively in the network and access the activities, resources and support available to European and Emerging Soil Living Labs and Lighthouses.