1. RISE RESEARCH INSTITUTES OF SWEDEN AB (RISE),

2. COLLABORATING CENTRE ON SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION GGMBH (CSCP),

3. ASOCIACION EMPRESARIAL CENTRO TECNOLOGICO DE LA ENERGIA Y DEL

MEDIO AMBIENTE DE LA REGION DE MURCIA (CETENMA)

4. ZABALA INNOVATION CONSULTING SA (ZABALA)

5. IFAU APS (IFAU)

6. LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT FUR AGRARTECHNIK UND BIOOKONOMIE EV (ATB)

7. GREENOVATE ! EUROPE (G!E),

8. ASOCIACION DE INDUSTRIAS DE CONOCIMIENTO Y TECNOLOGIA – GAIA –

EUSKALHERRIKO EZAGUTZA ETA TEKNOLOGIA INDUSTRIEN ELKARTEA (GAIA),

9. CLUSTER VIOOIKONOMIAS KAI PERIVALLONTOS DYTIKIS MAKEDONIAS

(CLUBE),

10. ISTITUTO DI STUDI PER L’INTEGRAZIONE DEI SISTEMI (I.S.I.S) – SOCIETA’COOPERATIVA (ISINNOVA),

11. AGRAREN UNIVERSITET – PLOVDIV (AU PLOVDIV),

12. UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA DE MADRID (UPM)

13. AGROBIGDATE SOLUTIONS SL (AGROBIGDATE)

14. HS KONSULT AB (HS Konsult)

15. SVERIGES LANTBRUKSUNIVERSITET (SLU)

16. AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS

(CSIC),

17. INSTITUTO MURCIANO DE INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO AGRARIO Y

MEDIOAMBIENTAL (IMIDA),

18. FUNDACION GRUPO CAJAMAR (CAJAMAR)

19. ESKILARA S KOOP TXIKIA (ESKILARA),

20. EUSKAMPUS FUNDAZIOA (EUSKAMPUS),

21. OBISPADO DE BILBAO (SANFI),

22. INNOVATEKBI KREA SOCIEDAD LIMITADA (INNOVATE),

23. AYUNTAMIENTO DE FORUA (FORUA),

24. ANONYMI ETAIREIA DIACHEIRISIS APORRIMMATON PER DYTIKIS

MAKEDONIAS (DIADYMA SA),

25. PANEPISTIMIO THESSALIAS (UTH),

26. NEA GEORGIA NEA GENIA ASTIKI MI KERDOSKOPIKI ETAIRIA (NEW

AGRICULTURE),

27. UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TRENTO (UNITN),

28. COMUNE DI OPPEANO (CDOP),

29. RUMA S.R.L. SOCIETA BENEFIT (RUMA),

30. INNOVHUB – STAZIONI SPERIMENTALI PER L’INDUSTRIA SRL (INNOVHUB),

31. CONSORZIO VOLONTARIO PER LA TUTELA DEI VINI CON DENOMINAZIONE

FRANCIACORTA E SEBINO (CPTF),

32. POLITECNICO DI MILANO (POLIMI),

33. PARCO REGIONALE DEL MINCIO (PMNC),

34. UNIVERSITA CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE (UCSC),

35. UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO (UMIL)

Description: European soils face pressing conditions for their health. An alarming 60-70% of EU soils are considered unhealthy, attributed to factors such as pollution, urbanization, and intensive agriculture, further exacerbated by climate change. This degradation results in economic, societal, and environmental repercussions, including decreased land productivity, migration, land abandonment, and biodiversity loss.

Addressing this challenge necessitates holistic measures, especially since soil restoration can take centuries. The project initiative, aligning with various EU policies, emphasizes the importance of comprehensive soil restoration efforts. It plans to establish six Soil Health Living Labs (SHELLs) across diverse EU climatic zones, including Sweden, Spain, Spain-France, Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria. These labs are envisioned as innovation hubs, tailored to address the EU's specific soil health objectives. Through collaborative efforts within these SHELLs, the goal is to develop, test, and validate potential solutions, ensuring scalability beyond their immediate regions. iCOSHELLs places a strong emphasis on inclusive stakeholder engagement, from researchers to landowners. Its systematic approach includes building stakeholder capacities, bridging gaps between science and practical applications, deepening understanding of soil indicators, replicating effective soil recovery methods, and championing supportive soil health policies. Additionally, iCOSHELLs seeks to redefine the concept of Living Labs (LLs). Challenging the traditional model, which often revolves around isolated research entities, iCOSHELLs envisions LLs rooted in co-creation, broad engagement, and real-world application. This transformative vision aims to evolve existing SHELLs into standardized, widely recognized labs, setting a foundational blueprint for future LLs. Moreover, as a comprehensive soil data repository, iCOSHELLs promotes collaboration, ensuring replicable.

In Greece, the laboratory that will be set up to restore contaminated soils is the Greek Mine Soil Health Living Lab (GMN SHELL). The ultimate aim is to address the issue of soil restoration and reclamation after contamination by lignite mining in the Western Macedonia Region (WMR) of Greece, test of different crops for feedstock, essential oil production and other non-food uses, to determine the most efficient types of crops to be cultivated in terms of both soil restoration and economic potential and activate the participation and engagement of all relevant major stakeholders in the region, as well as of the local society, to adapt the SHELL approach to their own needs for future agricultural usage of the sites.In this regard, the GMN SHELL is composed by different abandoned mine soils and especially ten points, where the high levels of Cr and Ni contamination, as well as other contaminants, make them no longer productive.

DIADYMA is the landowner of the testing area in Western Macedonia for iCOSHELLs and will provide the experimental sites. Mine owners (DIADYMA) will coordinate the GMN SHELL and carry out the implementation and testing ofphytoremediation, soil restoration and society engagement solutions in constant collaboration with regional entities (Region and Municipalities of WM, Municipality of Kozani), research centres (CERTH, UTH, the American Farm School in Greece).