The Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme has awarded 10 million euros in funding to a research project led by the University of Helsinki to investigate how soil biodiversity affects soil health, productivity, and stability.
The project's main objective is to understand how soil biodiversity influences soil health across a range of climatic and land-use settings. The project combines field research, experimental studies, and advanced modelling approaches, which enables a multidimensional assessment of soil functionality.
"Healthy soils support food production, biodiversity, and climate regulation. However, mechanisms that drive soil functioning are still not fully understood. The aim of the project is to provide a scientific basis and practical tools for maintaining and restoring healthy soils in a changing world," says the project's leader Professor Anna-Liisa Laine from the University of Helsinki.
In 2026, the EU Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive came into force, with the aim of improving soil condition across the European Union. Soil health is not a single property but a collection of interconnected functions, such as carbon sequestration, nutrient recycling, water retention, biomass production and resilience to disturbances. Therefore, optimizing soil health requires an understanding of how these different functions interact, and how they may both enhance and constrain each other.
"For example, carbon-rich soils may be deficient in nutrients required by plants, and a fertile soil that promotes rapid plant growth may be vulnerable to drought or compaction. The extent to which different soil functions support or constrain one another is strongly influenced by biodiversity, climate, and land-management practices," says Professor Jussi Heinonsalo of the University of Helsinki.
Towards a More Comprehensive Assessment of Soil Health
The project will use a standardized sampling and experimental setup across Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. This will help researchers identify the ecological mechanisms that influence soil health and separate them from local variation. In addition, the team will use advanced statistical methods and machine learning to include complex factors - such as biodiversity and soil functions - in analyses that support decision-making and in data-driven predictions.
"Our goal is to develop the most comprehensive and biologically relevant predictive model of soil health to date. The model will help support the development of climate-resilient land-use and agricultural strategies, as well as reliable soil health monitoring programs," says Professor Jarno Vanhatalo of the University of Helsinki.
According to the researchers, harnessing biodiversity to maintain and restore healthy soils is becoming increasingly important for strengthening societies' resilience to climate change and other crises.
The research is conducted by Anna-Liisa Laine, Professor of Plant Biodiversity at the University of Helsinki, in collaboration with Professor Jussi Heinonsalo (Forest Soil Science) and Professor Jarno Vanhatalo (Statistics), both also from the University of Helsinki, Professor Johannes Rousk (Soil Microbiology) from Lund University, and Associate Professor Dorette Müller-Stöver (Soil Science) from the University of Copenhagen, with support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme.
