The analysis of soil research is particularly relevant given the increased political attention on soils at EU and global levels. This dataset includes a collection of EU Research projects in soils (n = 1101 projects) funded by the successive European Commission Framework Programs (FP) for research and innovation (from FP1 to H2020). The dataset has been created collecting information from the Community Research and Development Information Service and the official portal for European data.
A keyword-based stocktaking of soil related research projects has been conducted, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. First, we used CORDIS (https://cordis.europa.eu/) to identify soil projects funded by the EC with the search terms 'project' AND 'soils' OR ‘soil’ in their CORDIS record. In a second step, we used data.europa.eu (https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets) to obtain public grant information for each project identified (legal basis, topics, cost, coordinator, country, participants, etc.). After removing the duplicates, the projects were screened based on their title and summary. We discarded 2271 records, using automation tools, which are projects that did not include the word “soil” in the tittle or in the summary. We did not consider projects which have used other terms than soils as the purpose of the investigation was to determine trends over time, rather than to provide a comprehensive record of all projects on the topic. The rest of the projects (n = 1172) were manually assessed for eligibility. Authors inspected the title and the project summary and excluded those projects that were not related to soil science (n=57). Another 14 duplicated records were manually removed. Finally, n = 1101 projects were included in the study.
Reference data (countries, funding schemes/types of action, subjects (SIC codes)) can be found in this dataset: https://data.europa.eu/euodp/en/data/dataset/cordisref-data.
CORDIS datasets are produced monthly. Therefore, inconsistencies may occur between what is presented on the CORDIS website and this dataset.
Our results need to be understood as a fist attempt to develop a database of soil related research projects funded by the EU. This dataset will be refined in the future and expanded with projects funded under the current FP (Horizon Europe).
Resource Type: Soil Knowledge - Projects
Registration is requested: No
Year: 2023
Reference: C. Arias-Navarro, P. Panagos, A. Jones, M. J. Amaral, A. Schneegans, M. Van Liedekerke, P. Wojda, L. Montanarella 2023. Forty years of soil research funded by the European Commission: trends and future. A systematic review of research projects. European Journal of Soil Science 74(5): e13423, DOI:10.1111/ejss.13423
