What is the Soil Innovation Partnership (SIP)?

The Soil Innovation Partnership (SIP) is a pan-European initiative uniting science, policy, philanthropy, and business to transform soil research into real-world impact — through validation, innovation, and investment.
Building on the success of the European Joint Programme on Soil (EJP SOIL), SIP connects public, private, and philanthropic partners to strengthen and expand soil health research and practice across Europe.

Our Mission

To unlock the power of healthy soils to restore balance between people, nature, and economy—building a resilient and regenerative future from the ground up.

Between October 2025 and June 2026, the Soil Innovation Partnership is in a scoping phase to explore and shape the foundations of this mission. Through three interconnected pillars of action, we will test how science, practice, and investment can align to accelerate Europe’s soil transformation.

1. From Knowledge to Practice

We will connect research and real-world experience through farmer-led validation across Europe’s diverse pedoclimatic zones. In collaboration with living labs and co-designed field trials, we will test what works, track socio-economic impacts, and translate insights into practitioner-friendly tools. This pillar turns knowledge into action—grounded in the realities of farmers, foresters, and land stewards

2. Advancing Innovation to Market Readiness

Healthy soil needs innovation that can scale. We will identify and assess promising soil solutions, from nature-based approaches to digital tools, and work with cooperatives, agrifood businesses, EU innovation programs and investors to bring them to market. This includes building the evidence and policy alignment needed for uptake and impact at scale.

3. Unlocking Private Investment

Lasting change depends on sustained financing. We will engage investors, insurers, and agrifood actors to co-create investable models for soil health—such as soil carbon credits and blended finance schemes. By demonstrating return on impact through pilots and data, this pillar aims to unlock private and public investment and share risk  for investment in the future production systems across the value chain.

Together, these three pillars will define how the Soil Innovation Partnership can empower policy and practice, accelerate adoption, and unlock investment—laying the groundwork for a thriving soil innovation ecosystem in Europe.

Why SIP is needed

The way we produce food must change. Around the world, our food systems face the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, while still being asked to deliver healthy, nutritious food close to where it’s consumed. At the heart of this challenge lies the soil—our most fundamental yet undervalued resource.

The private sector has both the innovation power and the resources to drive this transformation. Yet systemic lock-ins—from short-term profitability pressures and fragmented accountability to limited leverage for low-TRL innovations—slow progress. Investments in the future of crops, plant nutrition, and soil-based technologies often fall through the cracks, despite their crucial role in building resilient farming systems.

At the same time, many companies are stepping forward to promote soil health and explore carbon farming, though gaps in knowledge remain—especially around how different soil management practices perform across Europe’s diverse pedoclimatic zones.

Policy shifts under the EU Green Deal are adding both urgency and complexity. With reduced fertiliser use, pesticide bans, and new cropping requirements, farmers are caught at the crossroads of policy ambition and practical possibility. They are asking fundamental questions:

• How can I protect my crops without pesticides?
• How can I boost soil life and nutrient cycling naturally?
• Which seeds best support soil–plant interactions?
• How can I invest wisely in practices and technologies when the future business model is still unclear?

The Soil Innovation Partnership was created to respond to these questions—and to connect the dots between science, policy, and practice. By aligning innovation, investment, and shared learning, SIP supports both short- and long-term transformation towards a global food system grounded in healthy soils—capable of restoring biodiversity, supporting climate resilience, and sustaining life for generations to come.

EJP SOIL has already laid the groundwork by:

The Soil Innovation Partnership (SIP) builds on the strong scientific foundation laid by EJP SOIL. By uniting over 1,000 scientists across 24 EU countries, establishing National Hubs, delivering a 5-year roadmap for climate-adaptive soil management the was supported by the 24 participating countries, and generating harmonised, policy-relevant data, EJP SOIL provided the knowledge base.

SIP now takes this science into action