Citizen Science for Water Conference

Join us 3-5 June in Delft, the Netherlands for the Citizen Science for Water Conference. For this inaugural CS4Water conference, we will focus on freshwater systems, diving into engaging workshop sessions, exploring innovative research, and connecting international water and citizen science experts. The conference will focus on the crucial role citizen science plays within water resource monitoring, management and governance as well as community-led actions. The conference will bring together experienced citizen science practitioners and newcomers from both the Global North and Global South who are interested in exploring how citizen science can contribute to water management.

Let’s imagine training for facilitators in citizen science projects!

ECS and ECSA will be present at the Ecsite conference 2024 (https://ecsite.wildapricot.org/Programme/). Discover and share skills and training methods to facilitate participatory research and citizen science projects. Science centers and museums, universities and third-places are key players in participatory citizen science projects. These programs aim to give citizens their place in the production of knowledge, and can range from the simple collection of scientific data to the co-construction or even co-governance of research projects. In recent years, these approaches have beenstriving to become a mainstream approach to scientific research well beyond the classical topics connected to environment and biodiversity. But citizen science faces many challenges, such as reliable data, recruitment and participation of citizens or reluctance to use this approach by scientists and researchers. A less discussed issue, and perhaps a solution to some of these challenges, is that of the skills needed to facilitate this type of project. Indeed it is essential to create the conditions for dialogue and work for all stakeholders (research teams, citizens, partners, associations...). They need support to create together, transform their perspectives, adapt tools to their context, stay involved, understand each other in depth…What specific skills, knowledge and attitudes do facilitators need in these participatory projects? Could a training programme in facilitation and participation help? This session will offer a feedback from institutions involved in citizen science (inter)mediation and facilitation training. These short presentations will break down the problem into several sub-questions. They will form the basis of the workshop, during which participants will collectively identify the list of skills and training methods that are most relevant for the people in charge of facilitating particpatory citizen science projects. Speakers: Catherine Oualian (Universcience, France), Claudia Aguirre Rios (Groupe TRACES, France), Aoife Taylor (Trinity College, Ireland), Simona Cerrato (ECSA), Paul Boniface (Groupe TRACES, France).

The Role of Citizens in EU Missions Implementation

The TIME4CS consortium is delighted to invite you at the 1st Citizen Science Helix Event on The Role of Citizens in EU Missions Implementation - Tuesday, the 8th of February. EU Missions are a novelty of the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. They are a new way to bring concrete solutions to some of our greatest challenges. With ambitious goals, they will deliver impact by putting research and innovation into a new role, combined with new forms of governance and collaboration, as well as by engaging citizens. Missions will engage with citizens to boost societal uptake of new solutions and approaches. But what exactly will the role of citizens in the EU Missions implementation be? And how can we best integrate Citizen Science not only in the 5 areas of the Missions but also in our organisations? This event is aimed at anyone interested in Citizen Science and in participating in a project targeting one of the forthcoming Mission Calls. This event will also touch on the institutionalisation of Citizen Science and will have a dedicated pitch sessions (short presentations from participants searching for partners) for the upcoming Mission Calls. Speakers include: Neville Reeve - Head of Mission sector, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Policy & Programming Centre, Missions & Partnerships; Gabriella Leo - Seconded National Expert - Open Science policy - Science and Society, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, ERA & Innovation, Open Science; Muki Haklay - Professor of GIScience, University College London.

Technology in and for Society. Innovating well for inclusive transitions

This conference seeks to develop a policy agenda to pair the transformative potential of emerging technology with the necessity of good governance: how can we innovate both more and well, i.e. within inclusive processes, with values at the centre, and with lasting positive impact. The multi-stakeholder meeting aims to explore values, design principles, and a possible practical agenda for leveraging good governance for critical sociotechnical transformations.

The D-NOSES project at a glance

This is the first webinar of the D-NOSES Conference on Odour Management and Citizen Science. After honourable opening remarks by EC representatives, the D-NOSES project will be introduced as an innovative methodology to tackle odour pollution through citizen science. The need of a multi-level governance model and a multi-level engagement model will be discussed, as well as the D-NOSES engagement model and project tools. Further, 10 citizen science interventions at local level to monitor and improve odour issues will be presented. Finally, the D-NOSES Exploitation and Sustainability Plan will be described.

Citizen engagement TRANSFORMing regional R&I policymaking

Citizen engagement can strengthen trust between institutions and citizens. In the TRANSFORM project (funded under Horizon 2020) citizen science, co-design and co-creation have been applied to regional R&I decision-making in Lombardy, Catalonia, and Brussels-Capital. Through sharing of experiences and promising outcomes of citizen engagement in regional R&I policies, this participatory lab will provide examples and suggestions on how to create more open, transparent and inclusive regional R&I governance processes. Join us in an interactive session and learn more about the benefits of citizen engagement, get your questions answered by experts, share your experiences and suggestions for further applications in regional decision making. Registration opens on 30 August!

Call for abstracts Open Track on PANDEMIC AND STS - 8th STS Conference

We warmly encourage you to send your abstracts for the following track: How to Protect Communities from Sars CoV-2 through Co-production of Health and the Design of Commons-Based Ecosystems by Adopting Distributed Ledger Technologies? Convenors: Guido Boella, Vincenzo Giorgino, Valeria Poli, Sowelu Avanzo. Please, see the complete call for the submission guidelines below, or consult the complete list of tracks. The 8th STS Italia Conference will be hosted by the University of Trieste, Italy, June 17 through 19, 2021, by the Italian Society of Science and Technology Studies. It is our pleasure to announce that the calls for abstract are now open until December 18th, 2020. The conference will be an opportunity to present empirical and theoretical work from a variety of disciplines: sociology, anthropology, design, economics, history, law, philosophy, psychology and semiotics. The focal theme of the 8th STS Italia Conference will be "Dis/Entangling Technoscience: Vulnerability, Responsibility and Justice”. This broad theme refers to the complex and ambivalent role of technoscience and innovation in constituting societies – making possibilities flourish, but also creating new vulnerabilities. The conference will include 28 tracks, which are clustered into five thematic streams. The tracks focus on several topics, including: biomedicine, digital platforms and media, work and organizations, expertise and public policy, ethics of technology and innovation, and governance of science and technology at large. Abstracts (written in English, or in Italian in case of tracks in two language) should be submitted by December, 18 to the conference email address (stsitaliaconf@gmail.com) and to the emails of convenors' selected track. Track Convenor(s) will be responsible for reviewing, accepting/rejecting and organising submissions into their track. THEMATIC STREAMS · Biomedicine, bodies and technoscience; · Platforms, digital technologies and media environments; · Rethinking science, technology and innovation: emerging challenges; · Including, excluding and connecting through / within technoscience; · Governing and reshuffling technoscience and innovation processes; · Open Track: Science and Technology Studies in Post-socialist countries/in Central and Eastern European countries; · Open Track on PANDEMIC AND STS: How to Protect Communities from Sars CoV-2 through Co-production of Health and the Design of Commons-Based Ecosystems by Adopting Distributed Ledger Technologies?

Policy options for the ethical governance of disruptive technologies

In view of the upcoming legislative proposal on ΑΙ and its ethical aspects, the event will seek to identify which issues and challenges of AI are in need of particular attention. It will also discuss ways to address those challenges and build on what was learned through the AI debate to better prepare for the next wave of scientific and technological advances, and ensure that these are beneficial to society and their risks are addressed early. Three major EU-funded projects, SIENNA, SHERPA and PANELFIT, representing a €10m investment in research from the European Commission to develop governance structures sensitive to ethical and human rights concerns in relation to emerging technologies, are coming together to discuss their findings and provide the context for a discussion on the policy options for the ethical governance of disruptive technologies. A full draft programme is available on the website below. The event is due to run from 13.00-18.30.