The Belmont Forum is pleased to announce the launch of a collaborative research call on the theme: Towards Sustainability of Soils and Groundwater for Society. The goal of this CRA is to produce the necessary knowledge and propose solutions to maintain well-functioning soils and groundwater systems in the Critical Zone, or rehabilitate them where degraded, through: 

1. Better understanding of the long- and shorter-time dynamics and functions of soils and groundwater, impacts from societal (including economics) decisions, integrative management practices, public policies, and how these systems have been transformed; and,
2. Providing avenues, pathways, and narratives toward transformation of management practices of the whole soil and groundwater systems through a fundamental shift of socio-economic actors’ practices and related-decisions making processes.

Details of the call and the application process are provided via the application portal https://bfgo.org. There are also training modules available for proposers on the Belmont Forum YouTube channel. Before starting to prepare proposals, applicants are advised to contact their funding organisation(s) as listed in the annex documents for the call.

A total of 10 funders from 9 countries have committed cash and in-kind resources for this call: FAPESP (Brazil), AllEnvi (France), ANR (France), CNR (Italy), JST (Japan), QNRF (Qatar), KAUST (Saudi Arabia), RFBR (Russia), MOST (Taipei) and NSF (USA).

Timeline:

• Registration due by July 23, 2020, 13:59 UTC
• Full-proposals in English are due by August 24, 2020, 13:59 UTC
• Results should be announced early 2021 and projects are expected to start mid-2021.

Find further information and call documents at https://www.belmontforum.org/cras/#soils2020