Stepping up and bringing out the scientific excellence and innovation capacity in soil research of the University of Lisbon (SOILdarity)

Soil science is essential in different agricultural and environmental domains including precision agriculture, which is one way of ensuring sustainable soil management practices. The EU-funded SOILdarity project will develop a scientific solution that integrates soil ecology with cutting-edge soil and crop sensors, modelling and system control technologies for sustainable soil management. The project will focus on Portugal, where soil health faces considerable challenges due to management and climate changes, erosion and overexploitation patterns. Specifically, it will facilitate the cooperation between FCiências.ID – Associação para a Investigação e Desenvolvimento de Ciências (including the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Science, a major research centre in soil sciences in Portugal), and two internationally leading research institutions: MIGAL- Galilee Research Institute (Israel) and UGENT University (Belgium).  The leading partner aims at boosting the research and innovation capacity of the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon and improving its know-how in precision agriculture and sustainable soil management through the knowledge-transfer dynamics established with the internationally leading research -intensive partners.