Andreas Richter leads international project “ActiveSOIL - From Active Microbiomes to Soil Health” supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation
„ActiveSOIL - From Active Microbiomes to Soil Health“ has received a grant of up to DKK 75 million (approx. 10 Mio €) over six years from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The project is supported as part of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme 2026.
The research aims to strengthen the biological basis for assessing soil health by integrating soil biology more systematically into evaluation frameworks. While current assessments often rely primarily on physical and chemical indicators, such as soil organic matter content or water-holding capacity, ActiveSOIL will focus on measuring the activity of soil organisms, particularly microbial communities, and connecting these dynamics to the ecological processes that underpin soil functions.
Soils are crucial for food security, global biogeochemical cycles and climate regulation. They store more than 3,000 billion tonnes of carbon, which is more than twice as much as the atmosphere and plants combined.
The project is led by Andreas Richter of the University of Vienna and involves international partners including Caitlin Singleton (Aalborg University, Denmark), Jennifer Pett-Ridge (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA) and Michael Obersteiner (University of Oxford, UK).
The grant is awarded through the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Challenge Programme 2026, which supports large-scale projects tackling major global challenges.
CeMESS/Ludwig Schedl