Solaris5.

SOLARIS5 is a Living Labs Knowledge Ecosystem for Soil Resilience, Durability, and Sustainability. 

We are building a pan-European Innovation Hub for Living, Policy & Co-creation Labs to support systemic actions within the decision-making ecosystems. 

SOLARIS5 is the concept, the paradigm, the tool, the network, and the alliance of knowledge and practice within our future societies. SOLARIS5 is also the interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary system for connecting theoretical, experimental, exploratory, and applied scientific research.

SOLARIS5 are building 5 living labs-based hubs and communities in the North, South, East, West, and Center of Europe to approach local and global, present and future issues related to the health of soils, cities, rural worlds, regions, people, and nature.

EXCELLENCE

Earth, soil, terrain, matter, dust, foundation, field, garden, nature, foundation, place, minerals, planet. All these concepts define, from different perspectives, our relationship with soils. Each concept refers to a certain main meaning that defines our relationship with nature and the lands. But we can hardly understand all these meanings together and integrate them into methodologies, tools, and ecosystem intervention actions. 

The most important problem of our relationship with soils and with nature, in general, is the gaps and imbalances that different knowledge and ways of understanding have in our contemporary societies. Natural, social, cultural, political, economic, and psychological systems imply different issues in the resilience and sustainability of soils. And we rarely see the need to bring all these perspectives together to produce a complex knowledge of the entire ecosystem.

In response to this situation, the excellence of the Solaris5 project lies in the systemic approach to developing strategic tools. Through these tools, Solaris5 supports the resilience and sustainability of soils. Additionally, AI-driven soil monitoring tools will be integrated, allowing for real-time data collection on soil conditions, quality, and biodiversity. This will enable continuous improvement in the methods used for soil health monitoring and predictive modeling, supporting long-term soil sustainability. The actions determined by this objective consist in identifying the best solutions of participatory knowledge and collaborative governance through multi-actor approaches. These solutions are strategically aligned to the processes of knowledge production, transfer, and consolidation. 

The meaning of the excellence of the Solaris5 project is multiple and is determined by:

• Excellence in the systemic approach to the problems of our relationship with soils, a relationship that, due to its complexity, requires multidimensional solutions for strategic management, by the principles of resilience and sustainability.
• Excellence in the integrated approach to scientific research processes, participatory knowledge, systemic intervention action, strategic projection, and collaborative governance.
• Excellence in linking dual methodologies of research, knowledge, and action: theoretical research and applied research, social knowledge and entrepreneurial knowledge, participatory innovation, and equitable development, human rights and ecological principles, local systems and global systems, North-South, East-West, urban systems and rural systems, short-term resilience and long-term sustainability. 
• Excellence in the dynamic and systemic structure of the ecosystem of knowledge and action that the Solaris5 project develops. This structure is based on 5 European regional clusters of integrated research, centred on 5 living labs and supported by a multi-actor community.
• The excellence is given by the methodologies that the Solaris5 project develops. These methodologies have an integrated, dynamic character, systemic applicability, and a high degree of adaptability and replication. 
• The excellence given by the innovative solution on which the Solaris5 project is based. This solution connects innovative tools, societal paradigms, multi-actor solutions, participatory knowledge and governance methodologies, systems thinking approaches, principles of open and fair knowledge, and values ​​of social and ecosystem humanism.
• The excellence of the Solaris5 project is also given by the duality between the extremely ambitious goal of the project and the operational objectives with a high degree of intelligence, innovation, applicability, and replicability. 

In terms of strategy for integration within the regional and European ecosystems, the Solaris5 project applies the concept of Excellence Hub, supported by the European Commission, strengthening regional innovation excellence, through innovation ecosystems, by teaming up academia, businesses, governments, and civil society.