ECS Synergies
As we clearly celebrated on our final event — no project is an island.
Cluster events
No project works in isolation. Across Europe, many initiatives address similar questions, develop complementary tools, and reach different parts of the same community, and there is much to gain when they share what they learn rather than working in parallel. Strengthening these links, between citizen science projects, networks, and the European Commission, was one of the central aims of the ECS project.
One of the main ways we pursued this was through a series of annual cluster events. Each brought together projects, networks, and EU representatives around a shared theme, combining presentations with group discussion. Stickydot coordinated and moderated the three events held over the course of the project.
The first event (July 2023, online) addressed the role of citizen science in transforming higher education, gathering around 108 participants to discuss how universities can support citizen science and early-career researchers.
The second (April 2024, online) focused on data, examining the infrastructures, practices, and services needed to make better use of citizen-generated data.
The third (June 2025, in Brussels) turned to policy. Organised with IMPETUS and the Research Executive Agency and preceded by a public Citizen Science Fair, it brought together more than 20 projects and produced joint policy recommendations from ECS, COALESCE, REINFORCING, and IMPETUS for the next EU Framework Programme (FP10).
Short reports from all three events are available on Zenodo (1, 2, 3).
Sister projects
We collaborated with several projects funded by the European Commission throughout the ECS lifetime. Starting in early 2024, representatives from ECS, COALESCE, PATTERN and REINFORCING came together for a series of cross-project workshops to map common ground across training, policy and community building. These sessions identified concrete synergies, from cross-referencing training modules and sharing platforms to coordinating shared policy messages. This work fed directly into the policy roundtable at the 2025 cluster event in Brussels, where for the first time the citizen science, science communication and ORRI communities came together with the European Commission to present shared recommendations on the future of public engagement in EU research and innovation. A few highlights include:
COALESCE
COALESCE (“Coordinated Opportunities for Advanced Leadership and Engagement in Science Communication in Europe”) is a four-year Horizon Europe coordination and support action (April 2023 – March 2027) that worked to professionalise and strengthen science communication across Europe. The project built a network of 27 national and regional hubs connecting science communication communities to each other and to shared resources. Its main output is the European Competence Centre for Science Communication, an online platform that brings together training, a curated resource library and a community of practice for researchers, science communicators, journalists and policymakers. The project also developed quality standards for science communication resources and contributed to work on EU research assessment in the field. ECS and COALESCE found natural overlap around training and capacity building. Through the cross-project workshops, both teams looked at how their training offers could complement each other and coordinated on shared policy priorities for FP10. Both projects reflect the importance of connectedness to cultivate growth and sustainability of the international science engagement field.
PATTERN
The PATTERN project (“Piloting open and responsible Activities and Trainings Towards the Enhancement of Researchers Networks”) was a 42-month (2022-2026) Horizon Europe coordination initiative aiming to embed Open and Responsible Research and Innovation (Open RRI) principles into researchers' professional lives. By co-creating and piloting high quality training modules across its network of academic and research institutions, PATTERN seeks to empower researchers at all stages of their careers within the European Research Area (ERA). The project created course material around eight themes. One of these courses was dedicated to citizen science and another to science communication. PATTERN contributed to the development of the Citizen Science Competency Framework (CitSciComp).
REINFORCING
REINFORCING is a 50-month Horizon Europe project that works to spread Open and Responsible Research and Innovation (ORRI) practices across Europe. At its centre is the ORRI Platform, an online hub with practical resources, an interactive map of ORRI-active institutions, and a community space connecting funded projects with wider networks. The project awarded cascading grants to institutions looking to start or scale up ORRI work, with dedicated calls for open innovation and EU Mission projects. It also ran capacity-building sessions helping communities tackle specific challenges in putting responsible innovation into practice. Through the cross-project workshops, REINFORCING and ECS explored how grantees could be pointed to training and resources from other projects in the cluster, and how lessons from funding ORRI and citizen science could be shared with funding agencies.
IMPETUS
IMPETUS was a Horizon Europe project that advanced citizen science by broadening access to innovative funding, bridging the gap between initiatives and policymakers, and highlighting the sector's role in addressing societal challenges, particularly the European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals. The project operated three Open Calls (2022–2025) through its Accelerator Programme, awarding €20,000 to launch 97 new initiatives and €10,000 to sustain 32 existing ones, while providing integrated training, mentoring, and peer-learning support. Alongside this capacity-building effort, IMPETUS established the EU Prize for Citizen Science, featuring annual awards for outstanding achievements, diversity, and digital communities, judged by an independent jury and guided by a dedicated Citizen Panel. On the policy front, the project developed impact assessment tools aligned with SDG targets and engaged in horizon scanning and stakeholder workshops to embed citizen science data into evidence-based EU policymaking. Like ECS, IMPETUS underscored the value of structured support mechanisms in scaling grassroots efforts and translating local action into broader systemic impact.
RIECS-Concept
RIECS-Concept is a three-year Horizon Europe project set up to design, through co-creation, Europe's first research infrastructure dedicated to citizen science. It is coordinated by Fundación Ibercivis, with ECSA as scientific coordinator, and unites a consortium of 13 partners across eight countries — Spain, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Italy, Serbia, Lithuania and Switzerland — together with the University of Zurich as an associated partner. The project works across three domains — environmental observation, health and climate change — where a shared infrastructure could raise the quality, interoperability and reach of citizen science, and it carries ESFRI-level ambitions, laying the groundwork for lasting institutional support across the continent. In that sense, RIECS-Concept picks up the longer-term question running through much of the cluster's work: how to give excellent citizen science a durable, pan-European home.