2025: From soil science to policy : Harnessing the biodiversity beneath our feet for a climate-resilient future

Mirco Barbero is policy officer in soil protection and sustainable land use; he leads the Soil Team since June 2019 within the Unit Land use and management, Directorate-General Environment, European Commission.

Mirco has a degree in physics and has worked for a dozen of years in the private sector as responsible for the quality assurance of products and services. He has joined the Commission in 2005 where he worked mainly as team leader in internal audit, advising the management on how to improve performance, governance and risk management in several policy areas. He and his team are now fully involved in making the EU soil policy contribute significantly to the European Green Deal ambition.

Giulia Bongiorno is a lecturer and researcher in the Soil Biology group (SBL) at Wageningen University (WUR), with a focus on the role of soil biota in soil processes and functions. Her interest and work lies in monitoring and counteracting the negative effects of intensive agricultural practices on soils. She has worked mainly in agricultural systems within and outside Europe, from arables and perennials to agroforestry. Her work during these years ignited her interest in the role of agriculture in the broader economic and societal context, and in the important of soil literacy,  outreach and multidisciplinary projects and collaborations. Since March 2024 she is also the outreach supporter of the WUR Soil Science Cluster.

Elodie Champseix is the Natural Resources Senior Officer at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN); she currently leads her team on the topics of soil, water, agriculture and food systems. Elodie holds two degrees in economics and management, and builds on her experience in project implementation and policy development. She and her team are committed to build bridges between science and policy, reaching for preservation and safeguard of our ecosystems.

Pablo Sanchez is a researcher at Leitat Technological Center and doing his PhD in association with the University of Barcelona, under the field of microbiome biotechnology. His primary research focuses on studying the role of soil organisms, using molecular methodologies, in agricultural ecosystems under various management practices and environmental pressures, with particular emphasis on linking these interactions with soil health.

Dr Alexandra Dehnhardt holds a degree in agricultural economics and a doctorate in environmental economics. For many years, she has been leading and working on inter- and transdisciplinary research projects as a research associate at different institutions, primarily on economic and political aspects of natural resource management. Since 2017 she is senior researcher at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) and since 2023 she is also head of the research field “Environmental Economics and Policy” at the IÖW and responsible for the topic area “nature and ecosystems”. Her research focuses on socio-economic perspectives on the protection of biodiversity, the importance of ecosystem services and nature’s contribution to people for societal wellbeing, and on adaptation to climate change. Her particular interest is the analysis of institutional structures for considering the value of nature in policymaking.

Dr Els Dhiedt is a data scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology with expertise in soil biogeochemistry and ecosystem service modelling. Her work is currently focussed on agricultural systems and she has a background in forest ecology, in which she remains interested.

Salvador Lladó Fernández: Associate Professor at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the University of Barcelona. His research is developed in the field of soil ecology, especially, trying to define the effects of global change stressors on the living organisms beneath our feet, and the cascading impacts on human and planetary well-being. He is also a member of the committee of experts on climate change of the Catalan Parliament.

Tassos Haniotis recently retired, after a 33-year career in the Commission, as the Director of Strategy, Simplification and Policy Analysis in the Directorate General for Agriculture of the European Commission. Tassos is Sustainable Productivity Adviser for the Forum for the Future of Agriculture and a Senior Guest Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He previously held posts as Head of Unit in the Agricultural Policy Analysis and Perspectives unit and the Agricultural Trade Policy Analysis unit in the same Directorate General, as Member and subsequently Deputy Head of the Cabinet of former European Commissioner for Agriculture Franz Fischler (with respective responsibilities the preparation of the 2003 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, and the agricultural chapter of the Doha WTO Round and the EU-Mercosur negotiations), and as the Agricultural Counsellor of the European Commission’s Delegation in the United States. He holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Agricultural Economics from the University of Georgia, USA, and a B.A. in Economics from the Athens University of Economics and Business, in his native Greece. Before joining the European Commission, he spent six months as a visiting Fellow at the Centre for European Agricultural Studies, Wye College, University of London, focusing on EU-US agricultural trade relations in the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations. He hold a Honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Thessaloniki. Active in the ag research community, he is a member of the International and European Associations of Ag Economics, the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium, and the EU Nitrogen Expert Panel.

Martin Hartmann is a Senior Scientist at ETH Zurich and a distinguished researcher specialized in microbial ecology and soil science. His research centers around the pivotal role of soil biodiversity for the functioning of agroecosystems and the impact of human activities and climate change on this vital resource. His primary interest lies in leveraging microbial functions to enhance soil health and promote sustainable crop production. As lecturer at ETH Zurich, he is passionate about educating the next-generation of scientists. Dr. Hartmann is the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Soil Biology and a member of the International Society for Microbial Ecology.

Sophie Hélaine is a French agro-economist who has been working for the Commission for 20 years. Head of the ‘Policy performance’ unit, she is in charge of developing the performance monitoring and evaluation framework of the CAP, paying strong attention to improvements in the quantification of the impacts of the CAP.

Professor Laurence Jones, Group Leader at UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, is an ecologist with expertise in ecosystem services modelling, land use and global change, across a range of systems spanning urban, agriculture, coastal and semi-natural habitats. His work is interdisciplinary, collaborating nationally and internationally with economists, social scientists and health experts in addition to natural scientists.

Tamas Krisztin is a senior research scholar in the Integrated Biosphere Futures Research Group of the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program. He is the scientific coordinator of the Horizon Europe LAMASUS Project, which focuses on providing a novel governance model based on multi-level stakeholder dialogues spanning the European Commission, through national and local administrations down to citizens, as well as creating the necessary tools for co-designing agriculture, forestry, and climate policies in support of the EU’s climate neutrality target.

Georgios Manassakis received his Integrated Master Diploma from the Agricultural University of Athens, School of Agricultural Production, Infrastructure & Environment, Department of Plant Production Science, specializing in Agronomy, Plant Breeding and Biometrics. Subsequently, he received the Master's degree in "Plant Sciences" from Wageningen University & Research and specialized in Plant Pathology and Entomology. He worked as an intern at the Laboratory of Sericulture and Beekeeping (AUA), the Laboratory of Agronomy (AUA), as well as in the Laboratory of Chemical Ecology & Natural Products at the Institute of Biosciences and Applications of the NCSR Demokritos. Currently Georgios is a project manager in WINGS ICT Solutions in a variety of research projects, ensuring their smooth execution from conception to completion, by leading interdisciplinary teams and utilizing the expertise gained from practical research.

Max Meister is a natural resource management expert with a strong focus on soil science, water management, and plant nutrition. He earned his Master’s degree in Natural Resource Management in 2020, further specializing in soil science.

After completing his studies, he began working at NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, Germany) on integrated pest management (IPM). He later transitioned into soil policy, where his focus expanded to conservation agriculture and regenerative farming. His work is dedicated to advancing sustainable soil management practices that enhance environmental and ecosystem health.

Currently, he is actively engaged in European soil policy, working on the Soil Monitoring Law and the Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming Regulation (CRCF) at the EU level. As part of this, he is a member of the European Commission Expert Group on CRCF. Additionally, he contributes to the development of standards for soil ecosystem functions as a member of a DIN (German National Standardization Body) expert panel.

Tobias Möllney studied Socioeconomics at the University of Hamburg (B.A.) and Environmental and Resource Economics at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (M.Sc.) from 2015 to 2022. Since December 2022 he is junior researcher at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) in the research field “Ecological Economics and Environmental Policy”. Core focus of his work is the spatially explicit analysis and valuation of ecosystem services, primarily regulating services of urban greenery and green climate adaptation measures. To underpin consideration of these essential contributions of nature to human wellbeing in public debate and policymaking an essential part of his work is the development of intuitive visualizations and interactive tools to make their abstract values more tangible.

Ana Rocha currently leads the Policy team at the ELO and follows policies affecting agriculture and forestry in Europe. She holds a degree in agricultural engineering, having studied in Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands. She has consolidated professional experience in EU lobbying, representing the interests of European landowners and land managers for more than ten years, in Brussels and in London. She remains involved in a small family farm in Portugal.

Alberto Arroyo Schnell is Head of Programme and Policy at the European Regional Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He has been in leading positions on EU environmental policy during the past two decades. His current focus includes working together with the key sectors related to / impacted by / benefiting from biodiversity and nature, aiming to find ways to achieve the environmental targets jointly and to ensure ownership of these targets by all stakeholders. He has a background in Forestry Engineering.

More information
Website – www.iucn.org
Twitter – @IUCNBrussels
Facebook – iucnbrussels
LinkedIn – alberto-arroyo-schnel

Mark has enjoyed a long career in the agri-food sector having previously worked at the United Nations and for Syngenta where he held a number of senior leadership positions in corporate affairs and business sustainability in the EAME region and globally. After leaving Syngenta in 2017, Mark became Chief Executive of EngineeringUK, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to inspiring and nurturing STEM skills in young people. Mark later became Head of Marketing and Public Affairs for Indigo Agriculture Europe GmbH. Mark is a co-founder and senior adviser to the Forum for the Future of Agriculture and a Senior Fellow at the Transatlantic Policy Network.

Dr. Nataliya Zinych is the Corporate Public Affairs Manager at John Deere. John Deere is a global leader in manufacturing modern agricultural equipment and precision agriculture technologies.

Nataliya joined John Deere in 2009 and has held several positions before assuming her current role in Corporate Public Affairs Europe. Most of her time, she is based in Germany.

A native of Ukraine, Nataliya studied Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Management. She earned her PhD in Agricultural Economics from Humboldt University of Berlin. Before joining John Deere, Nataliya worked as a University Program Coordinator, Lecturer, and Research Fellow in both Ukraine and Germany.

Nataliya is actively involved with the European Agricultural Machinery Association (CEMA), participating in its Strategic Committee and the High-Level Group CO2, focusing on alternative fuels, carbon farming, and soil health. She is also engaged with several other associations, including the German Agricultural Machinery Association (VDMA) and the German Agribusiness Alliance.