ScienceUs - Crops Final Conference, From Local Action to European Impact

From Local Action to European Impact: Join the ScienceUs–CROPS Final Conference in Athens 25 November 2026 | Athens, GreeceHow can successful citizen science initiatives move beyond local experimentation, reach new communities and create lasting impact across Europe?On 25 November 2026, the ScienceUs and CROPS projects will come together in Athens for their Final Conference:“From Local Action to European Impact: The ScienceUs–CROPS Journey in Citizen Science Upscaling”The event will bring together citizen science practitioners, researchers, policymakers, project partners and stakeholders to exchange experiences, explore practical approaches to upscaling and reflect on how citizen-generated knowledge can contribute to more inclusive decision-making.Citizen science in actionA central part of the conference will showcase the experiences and achievements of the five initiatives supported by ScienceUs:CORE ACTS – Coastal Resilience: Action Through Citizen Science, IrelandThe Future is Climate, SpainBlue-Green Tops: Adapting Building Roofs for Climate Resilience, GreeceAcqua Sorgente, ItalyAlleviating Energy Poverty in Vulnerable Households, SpainTogether, these initiatives demonstrate how citizen science can address real societal and environmental challenges—from coastal and climate resilience to water monitoring and energy poverty.Their journeys also offer valuable lessons about what it takes to move from a promising local initiative to a sustainable model that can be replicated and adapted in other regions.From citizen-generated knowledge to policy impactCitizen science does not end with data collection. Its real potential emerges when evidence, community knowledge and lived experience are translated into decisions, policies and practical action.The conference will therefore explore how citizen science results and data can support inclusive policymaking, including the role of policy briefs in connecting project findings with the needs of decision-makers.Participants will also be introduced to the ScienceUs Upscale Academy, its portfolio of resources and the citizen science knowledge developed throughout the project.Exploring the practical dimensions of upscalingThe afternoon session will bring insights from the CROPS project and focus on three essential questions:Which citizen science projects are ready to scale?How can a citizen science project be successfully replicated and adapted?How can a scaled initiative remain useful, sustainable and connected to its communities?The discussion will draw on CROPS’ work in project curation, replication, orchestration, sustainability and community building.A dedicated CROPS Matchmaking Workshop, facilitated by OutBe, will create opportunities for participants to connect, exchange knowledge and explore potential collaborations. The conference will conclude with an open networking session.

ScienceUs–CROPS Final Conference

How can successful citizen science initiatives move beyond local experimentation, reach new communities and create lasting impact across Europe? On 25 November 2026, the ScienceUs and CROPS projects will come together in Athens for their Final Conference: “From Local Action to European Impact: The ScienceUs–CROPS Journey in Citizen Science Upscaling” The event will bring together citizen science practitioners, researchers, policymakers, project partners and stakeholders to exchange experiences, explore practical approaches to upscaling and reflect on how citizen-generated knowledge can contribute to more inclusive decision-making.

Innovative INOS: Bringing Open Knowledge and Innovation to Higher Education

Since 2019, the INOS project (Integrating open and citizen science into active learning approaches in higher education) has developed activities, experiences and tools to encourage HEIs to be part of this growing movement through teaching, learning, training and taking part in open innovation and knowledge activities. On the 3rd and the 4th of May the INOS project will hold a two-day online event to present the results and outputs of the project. The event will be split into three areas of discussion: - A general introduction to illustrate the ways that HEIs integrate open and citizen science into their practices. (3rd May AM); - A practical approach with workshops on pedagogical tools and best practices developed through the INOS project; - An inspiring discussion on the social role of universities through talks, a Knowledge Café to discuss the social and innovative impact that results from the practising of open and citizen science within HEIs. (4th May AM)

Engaging Citizen Science Conference 2022

The Engaging Citizen Science Conference will take place at Aarhus University, Denmark, April 25-26, 2022 and will promote knowledge sharing among the citizen science community. The aim of the conference is to engage citizen science researchers, practitioners, and citizens in sharing research, ideas, and innovations in order to make the field thrive and expand. The conference will be interdisciplinary in scope, inviting workshops, dialogue roundtables, posters, and demos from all main areas of research (natural and technical sciences, life and health sciences, and social sciences and humanities). The main conference language will be English, meaning that keynotes and main track sessions will be in English. Language of individual workshop sessions, dialogue roundtables, posters and demos are at the discretion of the session/roundtable/poster/demo organizer(s) and must be either Danish or English.

What is planetary health and why we need diverse citizen science perspectives and stakeholders to support it

What is planetary health and why we need diverse citizen science perspectives and stakeholders to support it Let’s celebrate the World Health Day (https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day) on April 7th, 13:30-14:30 (CET) with the webinar by Kim Grützmacher, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, introducing the #ECSA2022 conference from an holistic perspective. What is Planetary Health? And why we need diverse Citizen Science perspectives and stakeholders to support it? This webinar will introduce the holistic concept of Planetary Health. We aim to show that it will take diverse synergies and collaboration with the entire Citizen Science community with many scientific disciplines to implement the best of all possible futures on our human-inhabited planet. During the webinar, Kim Grützmacher will cover: - the concept and related fields of Planetary Health - the importance of planetary health in science with and for society - the importance of inter- and transdisciplinary research for achieving planetary health. Register here: https://bit.ly/3JkbAQp

Online networking meeting for Young Science & Citizen Science contact persons

The OeAD Center for Citizen Science and OeAD Young Science regularly invite to network meetings for contact persons at Austrian research institutions. The network meeting offers space for getting to know each other and exchanging experiences. In terms of content, the focus of this meeting is on our annual topic “Eurobarometer survey and science skepticism in Austria”. The employees of the OeAD Center for Citizen Science will also give an overview of the planned activities and offers for 2022. The network meeting is aimed exclusively at Young Science contact persons and Citizen Science contact persons. If your institution would also like to appoint a contact person, please contact the staff of the OeAD Center for Citizen Science at citizenscience@oead.at

Reaching out and stepping up: How citizen science and RRI can enhance bioscience research

Since the onset of the COVID19 pandemic, the impact of bioscience research on all of our lives has been made far too clear. However, developments within this field of research will continue to have long-lasting impacts on the world around us long after the current pandemic, from improving food security, mitigating climate change, protecting wildlife and the environment, as well as to continued medical advancements of all types. As the world continues to collide with the field of bioscience research, it has become increasingly important to include societal actors when we approach these fields of study. ResBios and StepChange invite you to join an online conversation about how RRI and citizen science can be used to enhance research, with a particular focus on open science and public engagement in the fields of bioscience research. By combining our shared experiences, we aim to demonstrate the theory and practice of employing these principles while discussing future challenges.

High-Level Roundtable and Interactive Workshop: Opening Research Infrastructures - How citizens can play an active role in the advance of ground-breaking research?

Europe is home of major world class research infrastructures which are crucial enablers of research and technological innovation and drivers of multidisciplinary and data-intensive science. Such research infrastructures can also play a key role in eliminating anti-intellectual beliefs in society and providing citizens with the intellectual ammunition needed to become critical consumers of scientific knowledge. This can be done by creating a well-functioning ecosystem that allows new forms of co-creation between professional researchers and citizen scientists by empowering the latter not only with access to research outputs but also to take part in the process of scientific discovery producing high-quality data and adding to the scientific knowledge. In that regard, it is of utmost important to rethink policies to make research infrastructures a key player in citizen science through a consistent involvement of citizens making a genuine and valued contribution to managing the data avalanche.

Webinar: Unlocking the Potential of Citizen Science Collaborations

This webinar is designed to discuss different approaches to citizen science by LIBER and ECSA Citizen Science Working Groups together with Leiden University, with the purpose of discovering synergies and potential opportunities for collaboration. During the webinar, speakers will cover: (1) achievements in advancing citizen science at libraries and universities; (2) the organisation of citizen science activities in universities, including a citizen science ‘engine room’ at the University of Southern Denmark; (3) how to embed citizen science activities for research and education purposes through sharing best practices, policies, and ‘sharing’ programmes; (4) finding the ‘sweet spot’ for citizen science in the matrix of faculty silos, top-down research, and bottom-up collaboration. We will hear the insights of four amazing speakers: Tiberius Ignat, Director of Scientific Knowledge Services (SKS); Anne Kathrine Overgaard, Head of External Projects at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark; Thomas Kaarsted, Deputy Library Director at the University of Southern Denmark; and Margaret Gold, Coordinator of the Citizen Science Lab at Leiden University.

Analyzing Citizen Science Projects using Web-based Tools

This workshop is about exploring a web-based tool (analytics workbench) that can be used to collect information about citizen science projects. It is based on current work in the European CS Track project, which seeks to increase the knowledge on CS using web-based analytics (computational analyses based on projects’ manifestations on the web and social media) and questionnaires, combined in a multi-perspective analysis. The analytics workbench can be used by the participants of the workshop to explore the landscape of online citizen science projects and to analyze projects with methods of text mining/analytics and social network analysis.

The uptake of data by citizen scientists, aggregators and end-users: successes, challenges and gaps in the dataflow

We are organising an hybrid scientific session at the Ocean Science Meeting, 27 Feb - 4 March 2022 on ‘The uptake of data by citizen scientists, aggregators and end-users: successes, challenges and gaps in the dataflow’ and are inviting you to submit an abstract by 29 September 2021. Please find more details of the session below. OD11 The uptake of data by citizen scientists, aggregators and end-users: successes, challenges and gaps in the dataflow Keywords: Citizen science, marine data, dataflow, interoperability, acceptance, engagement, policy, data management, validation, end user needs, sustainability, impact Organizers: Patrick Gorringe, patrick.gorringe@smhi.se, James Sprinks, jsprinks@earthwatch.org.uk, Peter Thijsse, peter@maris.nl, Emilie Breviere, emilie.breviere@smhi.se Citizen science is a particularly impactful channel to collect data and its utility has been proven on small scales, yet the groundbreaking, and absolutely necessary, potential of citizen science has yet to be realized. Over the last decade, marine citizen science projects have provided a cost-effective means to collect extensive data sets covering vast spatio-temporal scales where conventional data collection is limited in operation, such as coastal seas. However many initiatives fail to be sustainable, and fail to reach acceptance of their data by scientists and by policy makers. To be efficient and successful a project should provide data with sufficient quality, structure and availability to be used by professionals and ensure that citizen scientists realize and appreciate the impact of their contribution towards the understanding of the scientific big picture. When studying the flow of citizen science data, it follows a series of steps from the providers to the users, via data aggregators. The essential steps of this process are the acquisition, management, flow in key infrastructure, evaluation and impact analyses, use in ocean models, research and forecasting, and public visualization. The objective of the co-organizers is to provide a session during which participants will share experiences on successes and failures, needs and limitations in the data flow chain. The session wishes to be a unique niche for the numerous actors of the data flow in marine citizen science initiatives to meet and exchange. It will explore current and future collaborations, hear from invited experts about wider citizen science initiatives and discuss how marine data aggregators in its next phase can more systematically link with citizen science to not only expand the data provision from citizen science, but also find ways to encourage citizen science to work closer with data aggregators across the full value chain.

Citizen Science goes Europe!

Citizen Science-Projekte und -Initiativen bereichern zunehmend die europäische Landschaft - sowohl auf nationaler als auch auf europäischer Ebene. Doch welche Strukturen und EU-Projekte gibt es, die als Impulsgeber*in fungieren? Was genau machen diese Initiativen und welche Angebote haben sie bereits für nationale, regionale und lokale Citizen Science Projekte? In dieser digitalen Mittagspause stellen wir euch ECSA, die European Citizen Science Association, sowie zwei EU-Projekte, EU-Citizen.Science und CS Track, mit ihren Aktivitäten und Veranstaltungen in drei kurzen Impulsvorträgen vor. Die digitale Mittagspause findet über Zoom statt. Bitte registriert euch, um den Link zum Zoom-Raum zu erhalten und an der Veranstaltung teilzunehmen. Wir freuen uns auf den Austausch!

Webinar: Data protection, vulnerable groups and citizen science

This interesting webinar will shed some light on the challenges and possible solutions of data protection of vulnerable groups. In the first part, the webinar will focus on the guidelines and desirable practices when working with vulnerable groups to assure their rights are protected. Then, representatives of citizen science projects that work with vulnerable groups will give their insights. Afterwards, there will be an interactive exercise followed by a final discussion. This webinar is jointly organised by ECSA and Panelfit. Whether you want to participate in the discussion or just listen, you are very welcome. You can see the program and register in the link below.

Stories about Women in Citizen Science

ECSA is celebrating the 2022 International Day of Women and Girls in Science. This is promoted every year by UNESCO. Together with the ECSA Storytelling and Other Arts Working Group, we will share stories from many people (from all genders) from our community, who are particularly engaged in this field. One day a year is not enough to achieve equal opportunities for all, however even these symbolic moments are inspiring and need our strong support. The webinar and the stories will be broadcasted on the ECSA YouTube channel, so join us there from 11am on 11th February 2022: https://www.youtube.com/c/ecsaeuropeancitizenscienceassociation