In February 2026, five URSOILL Living Labs successfully held their first local co-creation sessions, marking a first step in bringing urban soil challenges into a shared, collaborative space. These sessions gathered a range of stakeholders (including local authorities, researchers, civil society organisations, and practitioners) to jointly explore their urban soil health journey. 

As coordinators for the co-creation process, we worked closely with the Living Lab teams to support the design and facilitation of these meetings (common guidance, interactive formats, and participatory tools) to ensure that each session could capture their local contexts while contributing to a shared URSOILL approach. 

Across the five Living Labs, discussions focused on: 

– identifying key soil-related challenges in the local context, 

– mapping opportunities and barriers (PESTLE through stakeholder perspectives) 

– initiating dialogue on potential pathways towards healthier urban soils 

The sessions also served as an entry point to assess soil literacy levels, understand stakeholder expectations, and build the foundations for engagement throughout the project. 

The co-creation sessions demonstrated strong interest from local stakeholders to remain involved in future thematic and site-based discussions. 

These first meetings mark the beginning of a 4-year process to not only support urban soil restoration across 50+ sites but also identify broader interactions between soil health and land-use decisions at the city scale.