The iCOSHELLs initiative, part of the EU Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe”, supports the restoration of healthy soils by 2030. It brings together six Living Labs (LLs) in the Basque Country, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Sweden, fostering co-creation among farmers, researchers, SMEs, NGOs, and public administrations.

Through this Open Call (OC), iCOSHELLs will fund and integrate new stakeholders and prototypes (innovative practices, technologies, or tools) to be tested in real-life conditions within its six Living Labs. Selected applicants will become full members of the iCOSHELLs network, actively participating in co-creation activities and solution validation for soil restoration and sustainable management.

Each LL focuses on specific regional challenges such as:

1. Soil structure and biodiversity improvement (Sweden, Italy)
2. Reduction of salinity and pollution (Spain, Greece)
3. Circular and community-driven restoration (Basque Country)
4. Sustainable viticulture and erosion control (Bulgaria)

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

The call will be limited to single applicants, natural persons or legal entities, although it will be allowed to use part of the funding to subcontract specific activities. Applicants, which are considered eligible under the Horizon Europe rules (residing in one of the eligible countries described in the Horizon Europe general annexes to the Work Programme) , include:

1. Landowners or land managers (e.g. farmers)
2. Academic or Research organisations
3. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)
4. Public administrations
5. Representatives of civil society (e.g. consumers, environmental NGOs)

Eligible applicants should have the capacity to conduct field testing. The following additional conditions apply to any eligible applicant:

1. The applicant should not have been declared bankrupt or have initiated bankruptcy procedures.
2. The entities applying should not have convictions for fraudulent behaviour, other financial irregularities, and unethical or illegal business practices.
3. There should not be any conflict of interest with any of the iCOSHELLs beneficiaries, as detailed in Section “Conflict of Interest”.
4. No double funding is allowed.

All the above will be assessed based on the declarations completed in the Application Form. If any of the required conditions are not met, the proposal will be considered ineligible.

Multiple submissions

The iCOSHELLs OC is a competitive funding call. Multiple applications are possible under this call. In these cases, applicants need to submit one application form per project proposal.

SUBMISSION PROCESS

The application procedures are described in more detail in the Guide for Applicants available at https://www.icoshells.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/iCOSHELLs_Open-Call_Guide-for-Applicants_EN2.pdf

Deadline

The deadline for submissions to the iCOSHELLs OC is February 04, 2026 (14:00 h CET). Only proposals submitted before the deadline will be accepted. After the call closure no additions or changes to received proposals will be taken into account.

_{It is strongly recommended that applicants do not wait until the last minute to submit their proposal. The failure to submit a proposal on time, for any reason, including network communications delays or working from multiple browsers or multiple browser windows, is not acceptable as an extenuating circumstance. The time of receipt of the application as recorded by the submission system will be definitive.}

Submission system

The entry point for the submission of all proposals is the iCOSHELLs OC page: Open Call application form - iCOSHELLs. Any proposal submitted through other channels will be automatically rejected.

Language

English is the official language for the iCOSHELLs OC. Submissions done in any language other than English will not be eligible or evaluated. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for translation purposes is allowed to avoid language barriers in the application process. English is also the only official language during the whole execution of the iCOSHELLs project. This means any requested submission of deliverables to be presented to the European Commission will be done in English. Nevertheless, internal reports can be done in local language, and each LL will translate them into English to share with the consortium.

Documentation

The OC is supported by the documentation listed below, which can be found at the abovementioned iCOSHELLs OC site. Applicants are encouraged to read and download all relevant files before proceeding with their submission:

1. Guidelines for Applicants, which provide an overview of the rules and procedures to participate in the OC, the evaluation process, and other general provisions.
2. Application Form, an online application form with administrative questions to be completed: Open Call application form - iCOSHELLs. It also includes some general questions for statistic purpose and tick boxes to be clicked by the third parties confirming they have read the conditions and agree with the conditions defined in this document.
3. Proposal description: the applicant must complete the document and generate a PDF version to upload to the application form.

Application preparation

Applicants must carefully read all the OC documents for proposal submission (previous section) and follow all the guidelines when preparing their proposals. Failure to adhere to these instructions may result in ineligibility.

1. Applicants are required to apply online and answer all mandatory questions (with no exception).
2. Applicants must select the LL they are presenting the proposal.
3. Applicants that do not accept the terms and conditions will not be eligible.
4. Applicants that do not upload to the “Proposal description” in the corresponding field in the online application, will not be eligible.

EVALUATION PROCESS

Proposals are evaluated in two steps:

1. Eligibility filter: It verifies that applicants meet basic requirements (eligible country, call alignment, correct templates, Horizon Europe rules).
2. Remote evaluation: Two (2) evaluators assess each proposal:
3. One from the iCOSHELLs consortium (LL-specific);
4. One external evaluator.

Evaluators must follow Horizon Europe rules on fairness, confidentiality, independence, and conflict of interest.

Minor language errors will not affect scoring.

Evaluation Criteria

All projects will be evaluated with the same criteria. Each proposal has 5 sections each of them scored from 0 to 5 (0=non-existent, 1=very poor, 2=limited, 3=fair, 4=good and 5=excellent). The minimum score for a positive evaluation of the received proposals is 3 per section. Therefore, the overall threshold, applying to the sum of the five individual scores will be 15. To determine the ranking, the score for “Budget” section will be given a weight of 1.5. Proposals that pass the individual threshold AND the overall threshold will be considered for funding, within the limits of the available call budget. Other proposals will be rejected.

Evaluation of Proposed Budgets

As part of the overall evaluation, each proposal’s budget will be reviewed to ensure that requested costs are reasonable, justified, and proportionate to the planned activities and expected results. The assessment will focus on the following aspects:

1. Coherence with the work plan: Budget allocations must correspond logically to the described activities (linked to prototype testing or monitoring needs), deliverables, and time frame. Costs should be distributed in line with the project’s structure and scale.
2. Proportionality and cost-effectiveness: The overall budget must reflect an efficient use of resources relative to the expected outputs and impact. Budgets that are substantially over- or under-resourced in relation to the proposed activities may receive a lower score. Profit margins on supplied goods or services are not eligible.
3. Completeness and clarity: Budgets must be presented within eligible cost categories (defined in the Proposal description template) and justifications clearly explained.

Additional scoring rule:

The breadth and integration of testing activities will contribute positively to the “Added value of the proposed prototype” criterion. A higher score will be awarded to proposals that:

1. Integrate several complementary prototypes or techniques within the same trial to address multiple soil health challenges; or
2. Clearly bridge several objectives of the Living Lab scope (e.g., combining nutrient-efficiency improvement with biodiversity enhancement or salinity reduction).

The increase in score will depend on the scientific and technical quality of the testing plan and its feasibility within available resources.