TRAILS4SOIL Open Call for MRVs – Soil health monitoring technologies: Up to €200,000 for innovative MRV providers
TRAILS4SOIL is opening its Open Call for MRVs (Monitoring, Reporting and Verification technology providers), inviting companies with innovative solutions for measuring and monitoring soil health indicators to test their technologies across Europe’s largest network of regenerative agriculture Living Labs, with up to €200,000 in funding available per provider.
About TRAILS4SOIL
TRAILS4SOIL is set up to investigate how Regenerative and Conservation Agriculture Practices (ReCAP) can restore soil health and support the long-term productivity, environmental sustainability and economic viability of European farms. The project brings together a consortium of around 20 partner organisations spanning universities, research institutes and farmer associations across Europe.
The project works directly with farmers and land managers across nine European countries, through five Living Labs covering 100 farms, including at least 11 lighthouse farms that will showcase promising approaches. TRAILS4SOIL frames its work around six soil health objectives defined by the EU Soil Mission:
- Reduce land degradation relating to desertification.
- Conserve and increase soil organic carbon stocks.
- Reduce soil pollution and enhance restoration.
- Prevent erosion.
- Improve soil structure to enhance habitat quality for soil biota and crops.
- Increase soil literacy in society across EU Member States.
ReCAP itself combines Conservation Agriculture and Regenerative Agriculture around four pillars: minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, diversification of species through crop rotations, and the integration of livestock management.
The five Living Labs each address a distinct regional challenge:
- LL1 – Permanent Crops (Spain & Portugal).
- LL2 – Organic Farming (Austria, Switzerland).
- LL3 – Adaptation to Climate Change (Germany).
- LL4 – Black Soil (Moldova, Romania, Ukraine).
- LL5 – Crop-Livestock Integration (Slovenia).
About TRAILS4SOIL – Open Call for the selection of providers of innovative MRV technologies
This Open Call for MRV providers seeks providers of innovative technologies offering advanced solutions for measuring and monitoring soil health indicators at the project’s farms. The goal is to improve the precision of evaluating ReCAP’s impacts and to foster collaboration between the agricultural and technology sectors. Through the call, TRAILS4SOIL expects to:
- Implement innovative technologies at a significant number of lighthouses and experimentation sites, monitoring key soil health indicators over two agricultural seasons.
- Acquire precise data on indicators such as water retention, organic matter and microbial biodiversity.
- Build new collaborations between farmers and technology companies.
Eligible technology types depend on the Living Lab where they are applied. An indicative list of technologies to be funded includes: in-situ soil indicator estimation tools (sensors, handheld probes), laboratory or field-based spectroscopy, remote sensing (satellite, drone, airborne), proximal sensing (IoT, electromagnetic methods), modelling platforms and digital tools, biomass assessment methods, and AI/ML solutions and digital twins.
Why apply to TRAILS4SOIL – Open Call for the selection of providers of innovative MRV technologies
The call has a total budget of €250,000 across all selected providers, structured across two funding tiers: up to €50,000 per technology, and up to €200,000 per provider (meaning a provider offering multiple distinct technologies could be funded for up to four of them). Funding runs for a two-agricultural-season implementation period and is calculated across four cost categories: technological implementation costs (acquisition and installation), operation and maintenance, personnel training, and data collection and analysis.
Beyond the funding, selected providers gain direct access to real farming conditions across 100 farms in nine countries, working hand-in-hand with farmers and researchers, and benefiting from direct user feedback that can sharpen their product’s practicality and effectiveness.
Who can apply?
Eligible applicants include:
- Private technology providers offering innovative solutions for soil health monitoring.
- Technological companies specialising in environmental indicator measurement, able to adapt their solutions to the specific needs of the Living Labs’ experimentation sites.
- Collaborating entities presenting proposals aligned with TRAILS4SOIL’s objectives and offering viable, effective soil-monitoring technologies.
Each applicant may submit only one application under this call, and applicants must declare the absence of any conflict of interest that could affect the impartial implementation of the proposed activities.
How to apply to TRAILS4SOIL – Open Call for the selection of providers of innovative MRV technologies
Applications must be submitted online via the application form and completed in English. The application package must contain a single PDF of no more than 8 pages that includes:
- Proof of company registration.
- Documents demonstrating absence of debt to Finance and Social Security Authorities (or the equivalent entity in other countries).
- Contact person details and company website (if available).
- CV of the lead solution developer.
- Brief overview of team composition.
- Methodological approach and technical specifications of the solution, including a summary of results obtained so far.
- A testing plan: what to test, in which Living Lab(s) and agricultural system, with a proposed timeline. The solution must be tested in multiple Living Labs, and it is highly preferable to work across all five.
- A description of the expected impact: how testing within TRAILS4SOIL would support further development of the solution and its potential for scalability.
- A detailed economic budget.
Important dates
- Call opens: 30 June 2026
- Call closes: 31 August 2026, 23:59 CEST
- Interviews: 14–18 September 2026
- Shortlist announcement: 30 September 2026
- Confirmation of selected companies: 30 October 2026
- Agreements signed: 2–6 November 2026
Proposal requirements
Funded activities must cover the development and implementation of technologies for measuring soil health indicators (water retention, organic matter, microbial biodiversity, and others), the installation and maintenance of the equipment at farms, training of farmers and Living Lab teams, and reporting and analysis of the data collected across the agricultural seasons. Providers are also expected to actively engage with farmers and Living Lab stakeholders — including on-farm testing, training sessions and feedback loops — to refine their MRV solutions in response to real-world conditions.
Because different Living Labs may use different MRV technologies, providers must follow a common framework for data collection shared with other technology providers on the project, supporting interoperability and data-sharing between different technologies, and participating in periodic cross-Living Lab calibration and validation exercises. Selected companies must submit two testing reports over the course of the project.
Evaluation and selection process
Applications go through three stages: eligibility check; evaluation and scoring; and clarification and verification. During the second, each application is scored from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) against five weighted criteria, each with a minimum required score of 3:
- Technological Innovation (20%).
- Technical Feasibility (25%).
- Scalability and Replicability (20%).
- Contribution to the Project’s Objectives (20%).
- Provider Experience (15%).
In case of equal scores, priority is given based on the outcome of an online interview with the tied candidates. Final selection is based on the ranking list, the available budget, and the strategic balance to be maintained within each Living Lab.
Additional support beyond funding
Selected providers get more than a grant: they gain structured access to TRAILS4SOIL’s network of five Living Labs across nine countries and 100 farms, spanning Mediterranean, Central European, German, Eastern European (chernozem) and Slovenian farming systems. This gives providers the chance to validate their technology against multiple pedo-climatic zones and cropping systems within a single testing programme, supported by a common data-collection framework and cross-Living Lab calibration exercises that help benchmark results against other MRV tools. Providers also retain ownership of any intellectual property generated during the funded activities, while granting TRAILS4SOIL and the European Commission a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use the results for research, policy-making and communication purposes.
Final Thoughts on TRAILS4SOIL – Open Call for the selection of providers of innovative MRV technologies
This call is a strong fit for soil-monitoring technology providers — from sensor and spectroscopy developers to remote-sensing and AI/digital-twin companies — that already have a working solution (TRL and prior validation matter for scoring) and are ready to deploy and test it across more than one farming system, ideally all five Living Labs.
Providers with more than one distinct technology in their portfolio have a particular incentive to apply, since the €200,000 per-provider ceiling rewards testing multiple solutions across the network. This makes the call especially attractive to providers looking to build a genuine, harmonised dataset spanning different European soil types and climates, rather than run a single local pilot.
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