EU launches LAND project to transform landscapes for sustainable Earth living

by Robert Schreiber
Berlin, Germany (SPX) Nov 07, 2025

Professors Jun Borras, Esteve Corbera, Ian Scoones and Anna Tsing, who lecture and conduct research at universities in the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and Denmark, have been awarded an euro 8.33 million European Research Council Synergy Grant for their five-year project Land and Life in the Anthropocene: Landscape reform (LAND). The project foregrounds the question: How can we learn to live on Earth in new ways?

LAND's core innovation moves past traditional land reform toward landscape reform, pursuing liveable and justice-based change for more-than-human life. The project recognizes that economies, politics, social and natural worlds are fundamentally interconnected.

Researchers will work across four distinct regions: the Colombian Amazon, southern African savannas, Mediterranean plains, and coastal Southeast Asia. Their goal is to find ways to reshape land, livelihoods, and ecosystems that support both people and the planet.

According to an ERC-Synergy panel evaluation report, "LAND is an excellent proposal for research that addresses some of the most pressing scientific challenges of the time."

The team's approach centers on four intersecting layers: Planet, Profit, Property, and Partners. These '4 Ps' illuminate how global systems of power, production, and profit influence possibilities for just, sustainable landscapes to emerge. Through the framing of 'landscape reform,' LAND aims to inspire both new thinking and practical action for living on Earth in new ways.

True transformation, the researchers argue, can only occur when humans, land, and nature are deeply connected. The 4Ps framework intentionally recenters discussion away from traditional Western separations between humans, land, and nature, instead challenging reliance on purely top-down planetary approaches. Public engagement is central, focusing on solutions that are inclusive, grounded, and guided by the real circumstances of people and places.

LAND was conceived during a hike in the Spanish Pyrenees, uniting four leading social scientists who blend ethnography, livelihoods research, action research, and systems analysis. The ERC-Synergy panel recognized their exceptional complementarity and strong professional track records, emphasizing the team's wide-ranging research networks and established relationships in the study regions.

In the words of the ERC-Synergy panel, "The panel recognized the academic strength, complementarity, and proven track record of the [researchers], who bring together a remarkable assembly of expertise across anthropology, political ecology, agrarian studies/development studies, climate research, and multispecies studies."

This initiative is funded by the EU's Horizon Europe program, supporting collaboration among leading experts to advance real landscape reform.