Pre-stakeholder mapping for Lighthouses and Living labs

This document constitutes the Deliverable D2.1 Pre-stakeholder mapping for LHs and LLs of InBestSoil is the first output of Task 2.1 Analysis and mapping of stakeholders for each LH and LL in the frame of WP2, Stakeholder communities for co-creation, co-innovation, and co-learning. The deliverable collects the main insights and context narratives for the 7 Lighthouses and 2 Living Labs that will act as use cases for the project activities, as well as a preliminary approach to stakeholder groups´ identification and engagement for each of these sites. The deliverable has been developed in consultation with all consortium partners, LH and LL coordinators, and it will be updated as needed with a final updated deliverable (D2.3) in M18.
The objective of InBestSoil is to co-create a framework for investment in conservation and recovery of soil health, by developing an economic valuation system of the ecosystem services delivered by a healthy soil and the impacts of soil interventions, and its incorporation into business models and incentives. This will allow for public and private organisations to provide economic value to their actions over soil health, codesign strategies with local stakeholders, and work collectively to deliver national and EU policy ambitions. InBestSoil will provide data, evidence, tools and models to assess how investment in soil health can contribute to the transition to a long-term resilient and sustainable use of soil, focusing on 7 Lighthouses and 2 Living Labs, which provides a total of 9 study areas across 4 biogeographic regions in Europe (Boreal, Continental, Atlantic, Mediterranean), and different land uses (agriculture, forest, urban, mining), as models for cocreation and co-design (multi-actor approach, responsible research and innovation and open science). InBestSoil is a 48-month project that started in January 2023, and it includes 19 partners from 10 European countries.
WP2, Stakeholder communities for co-creation, co-innovation, and co-learning will cover the entire project duration and its main objective is to create and strengthen stakeholder communities along the project LHs and LLs as a central hub for the performance of all other WPs. WP2 is divided in four tasks to achieve the following specific objectives: [1] engage and involve a wide variety of local, regional, national and European stakeholders including companies, public authorities, investors and civil society in investments in soil health; [2] establish short- and long-term collaboration schemes and platforms for the effective co-creation, co-innovation and co-learning process and sustainability of the project by dynamizing LH communities and building LLs around them; and [3] implement participation, co-design and co-creation methodologies to fully integrate key stakeholders knowledge, perceptions and interests in all the project activities and beyond.
Assessing the economic value of ecosystem services provided by soil, as well as current initiatives in place for improving soil health, will need a wide variety of experts to determine the most successful factors that look for an equilibrium across all actors from the value chain, including civil society. Likewise, proposing new business models and policy recommendations or incentive frameworks will also benefit from the different perspectives that a diversity of stakeholders can bring to the table. Therefore, WP2 will establish the most appropriate stakeholder groups that influence or are impacted by each LH and LL of the project to enable effective co-creation initiatives in order to share information, upskill, and advance the general knowledge on soil management and investment models in the future.