Our collaboration sessions ended but our collaboration will continue

Alexandre Torres Ferreira,
July 9, 2026, 11:10 a.m.

For about three years, a group of citizen science practitioners from across Europe would gather online, and someone among them would take the floor to share something they'd been working on in their own projects. We called these the ECS Collaboration Sessions, and I've had the pleasure of running many of them. 

They didn't actually start with the ECS project. The format goes back further, to the monthly citizen science meetings that ran under the old SwafS programme in Horizon 2020. When ECS came along, we picked them up and kept them going, first roughly monthly, then settling into a rhythm of once every couple of months.

The idea was simple, and I think that's part of why it worked out so well. Rather than us programming talks at people, whoever wanted to host a session could do so, on whatever topic they felt compelled to bring to the community. This meant that over the years we were lucky enough to have sessions on ethics and power in participatory research, inclusiveness, advocacy, legal aspects, working in conflict zones, and getting citizen science into municipalities, among plenty more. Whatever the topic was, the real value was in having a regular, low-key place to talk through the practical problems of this work with people who face the same ones. 

For the final session on June 2, we decided to focus on what happens next. The ECS project is wrapping up, but it would be a shame to let the community that formed around these sessions simply disperse. ECSA is picking up the format, with monthly member meet-ups, built around the topics members want to raise. A few dates are already fixed, including onboarding for new members in January.

Thanks to everyone who hosted or took part over the years. The ECS collaboration sessions ran their course, but the community’s motivation is still going strong.

By Alexandre Torres