SOILL has launched three dedicated Working Groups — collaborative spaces designed to deepen knowledge exchange, strengthen governance practices, and drive meaningful progress in soil health across the European continent.
The Working Groups are primarily designed for Mission Soil Living Labs, addressing the specific challenges they face in establishing and running effective Living Labs. Participation is also open to existing European Soil Living Labs, emerging Living Lab initiatives, and other stakeholder groups committed to soil health — based on expertise and motivation. All groups operate through the SOILL Hub.
- WG1 Living Lab Foundations & Governance
This Working Group strengthens Living Lab foundations through shared governance experience and collaborative learning, fostering a common understanding of Soil Health Living Lab core principles, helping Living Labs increase their capacity to scale, and engaging the wider soil health community in understanding the principles of Living Labs.
Its goal is to establish a shared understanding of what constitutes a well-functioning Living Lab, by developing robust governance structures and identifying effective methodologies, tools, and models that enable Living Labs to operate effectively, whether they are just starting out or looking to grow their impact.
Its key focus areas include supporting Living Labs in developing robust governance structures with clearly assigned roles and responsibilities, transparent decision-making processes, a common strategic vision, and continuous stakeholder involvement. Alongside this, the WG provides participants with inspiration for business model thinking, long-term sustainability planning, multiple revenue streams, theory of change, and impact monitoring, helping Living Labs remain viable and effective well beyond initial funding.- WG2 Stakeholder Engagement in Living Labs
This Working Group brings together Soil Health Living Labs and provides a collaborative space where Living Labs can exchange experiences, reflect on challenges, and explore ways to strengthen stakeholder engagement towards excellence. It aims to create a peer-learning community where participants can share practical experiences, reflect on what works and what does not, and co-develop approaches that build trust and foster collaboration across Living Lab ecosystems.
Its goal is to move away from stakeholder engagement based on trial and error towards a shared, structured, evidence-informed, and replicable approach, building a collective practice of excellence. By integrating diverse experiences across Living Labs, the WG aims to develop practical guidance and tools that support impactful and effective stakeholder co-participation.
Its key focus areas include co-developing a shared understanding of what constitutes high-quality stakeholder engagement, fostering peer learning and exchange of practical experiences, exploring inclusive and context-sensitive approaches for diverse stakeholder groups, and co-developing monitoring and evaluation frameworks to assess the effectiveness and impact of stakeholder engagement across Living Labs.- WG3 Soil Biodiversity
This Working Group is a community of stakeholders with an interest in soil biodiversity and soil health, bringing together core participants from Mission Soil Living Labs alongside European and Emerging Living Labs and key external stakeholders. Facilitated by SOILL partners at Cranfield University and chaired by two Living Lab practitioners, it was launched in March 2026 as part of the wider SOILL StepUp project led by ERRIN.
Its goal is to establish a peer support network and knowledge exchange platform for practitioners of soil biodiversity and soil health within Mission Soil and wider European Living Labs, supporting a harmonised assessment framework with consistent indicators, sampling, and monitoring approaches to enable cross-sector, cross-Living Lab, and cross-country comparisons.
Its key focus area is harmonisation across Living Labs, addressing the lack of common assessment metrics, the cost and complexity of soil biodiversity measures, and the need for coherent monitoring frameworks across different soil environments. This will be achieved through identifying best practices, harmonising metrics and data sharing, ensuring alignment with the European Soil Monitoring Law, and providing training through webinars and case studies.