Data-driven Urban Mobility Planning and Citizen Science
2020-11-05 14:00 - 15:00 (Europe/Paris)
Mobilising Mobility: Data-driven Urban Mobility Planning and Citizen Science: a match made in heaven – WeCount and ClairCity
How can data be used to contribute to sustainable urban mobility planning? What are the most cost-effective tools for public authorities? Can citizen-science contribute for this effort? As COVID-19 creates new and complex challenges for urban mobility, and policymakers face tighter budgets, these are key questions which must be addressed.
The webinar will draw from the experience of two EU-funded initiatives, WeCount and ClairCity, to examine the potential for citizen science to deliver data-driven urban mobility planning.
Register and find out more!

Webinar - Indigenous and Community Monitoring
2020-11-09 16:00 - 17:30 (Europe/Paris)
The event is part of the INECE webinar series aiming to explore current and potential uses of citizen/community science initiatives to improve environmental monitoring, compliance and enforcement around the world.
This session will explore how Indigenous and local communities are using community science to uncover environmental injustice and improve environmental protection on their lands.
Panelists:

Tom Bewick, Peru Country Director, Rainforest Foundation US;
Ruth Noguerón, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute;
Ellen Pfeiffer, Researcher in Citizen Science, UN IHE;
LeRoy Paddock, Managing Director, INECE Secretariat; Visiting Scholar, Environmental Law Institute, Moderator

Register for the Webinar Here.

Webinar: The Characteristics of Citizen Science
2020-11-12 14:00 - 15:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The field of citizen science is expanding rapidly, and many different actors are becoming involved in harnessing the field for knowledge generation and public engagement with science. However, reaching consensus on a common definition is still a challenge, and perhaps not possible, because the types of activities that can fall under the umbrella of citizen science are so broad, and placed at the intersection of numerous scientific fields.
However, there is often a need to seek a discipline- or context-specific definition (such as for a specific funding call). The EU-Citizen.Science consortium, in building the platform to share Citizen Science projects and resources, has also run into this need to communicate a clear definition, as guidance to those who would like to share their project and resources with the wider community.
A working group was therefore formed of consortium partners, led by ECSA and ECSA’s co-vice chair Muki Haklay, which sought to encompass the plurality of views from citizen science practitioners and affiliated communities, and to identify the common characteristics that practitioners expect from a citizen science project.
This Webinar will present the first outcomes of this process. Find out more and register!

Roadshow event No. 3 (Slovenia)
2020-11-18 | Online, Slovenia
Date: 18 November 2020
Location: online event
Agenda:
9.30-9.50h Welcome and introduction
9.50-10.10h Slovene experience with flooding and other natural disasters
10.10-10.50h Practical demonstration of a citizen observatory
10.50-11.35h Group work
11.35- 12.20h Plenary discussion
12.20-12.30h Recap and closing of the Roadshow event

The third WeObserve Roadshow event was held together with the cross-border project VISFRIM (Vipava/Vipacco and Other Transboundary River Basins Flood Risk Management), co-financed under the Interreg V-A Italy-Slovenia Cooperation Program (https://www.ita-slo.eu/visfrim) whose main goal is to improve flood risk management in cross-border river basins by implementing citizen observatories.
This Roadshow event was addressed to local authorities, regional/national policy-makers, scientists and experts that aim to demonstrate the potential and practical implementation of a citizen observatory for flood risk management. This event had a special focus on the Slovenian context and allowed participants to learn about the basic principles of citizen observatories, providing participants with (virtual) hands-on experience of citizen science and citizen observatories and demonstrating how decision-makers are using the information provided by citizens.
Specifically, the Alto Adriatico Water Authority (AAWA) showcased how their citizen observatory effectively helps in the management of the Brenta-Bacchiglione river basin. Based on this experience, participants discussed the potential of citizen observatories in the context of flood risk mitigation and what comes into play when implementing a Citizen Observatory.
Download here the Save-the-date document.
Registration: by invitation only

Webinar on CS financial sustainability
2020-11-19 10:00 - 12:00 (Europe/Paris)
On November the 19th ACTION team will host an online event with experts exploring different path towards financial sustainability.
The event is organised in three parts: in the first part experts will talk about Corporate Social Responsibility, social impact funding, crowdfunding and other possible solutions for supporting citizen science initiatives, especially those focusing on pollution and other environmental issues. In the second part a round table will support the audience in having a clearer picture on how to get benefits out of this sustainability options. The third and last part will be an open discussion among participants.
Learn more and register!

CITIZEN SCIENCE CONFERENCE 2020
2020-11-20
Strengthening ties between science, education and society is one of the major topics in University of Twente’s new strategy Shaping2030, and there are many ways to achieve this, with citizen science being one of them. The term citizen science refers to an equal basis for collaboration in tackling societal challenges using scientific methods.
University of Twente organises the Citizen Science conference, which takes place on 20 November 2020, with the ambition to join forces with all those that are interested or involved in Citizen Science.

Workshop on VGI for Land Cover/Use
2020-11-24 - 2020-11-25
An online workshop entitled ‘The use of volunteer Geographic Information for producing and maintaining authoritative land use and land cover data’ is organized on behalf of EuroSDR (A European Spatial Data Research network organization linking national mapping and cadastral agencies with research institutes & universities), the LandSense project (A Citizen Observatory and Innovation Marketplace for Land Use and Land Cover Monitoring) and IGN (The French National Mapping Agency). LandSense delivers innovate technologies for data collection, change detection, data quality assessment, offering tools and systems to empower different communities (e.g., private companies, NGOs, NMAs, research, public authorities) for land use and land cover (LULC) monitoring and reporting.
The major areas of interest include the following topics:

Feature-based LULC data production
Feature-based LULC update
LULC Change detection
LULC Monitoring services
Collection and Use of VGI to produce LULC data
VGI and authoritative LULC data integration
LULC data quality assessment
LULC data infrastructure
LULC data policies.

Submissions are encouraged (1 page maximum) from participants willing to share their experiences, algorithms, research approaches, use-cases, future planning linked to the listed topics by October 11 2020.
Participation in the workshop is free of charge. However, advance registration will be strictly required. Registration will be opened till November 11 2020.
More infromation about the workshop can be found here.

Art Pluriverse: A Community Science Series
2020-12-03 - 2020-12-23
The Biennale of Western Balkans opens a month-long online programme of collective actions for intangible cultural heritage and open knowledge. The programme focuses on empowering communities of practice in the Balkan region, documenting their cultural knowledge in cooperative, ethical and accessible ways. The 1st edition aims to uplift local knowledge and intangible cultural practices related to textiles, through the development of FAIR community archives and research-based art creation.
More info: https://bowb.org

3rd Annual Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival
2020-12-06 - 2020-12-12
How is democracy changing? How can citizens participate in this change? These are the themes of the 3rd Annual Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival. The global COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted societal and policy challenges amid uncertainty. People need solutions that go beyond business-as-usual policy. Open to all, the Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival is the chance for people of diverse backgrounds to gather and tackle some of the pressing issues of our time.
An open call for citizen engagement projects to be showcased in the festival virtual exhibition. Projects can bring novel approaches to citizen engagement, focused on ideas of deliberation or of co-creation, which can span art, science, and technology. Proposals from organisations from all over Europe that show the potential of citizen engagement projects on matters that concern EU citizens are welcomed. The call for proposals is open until 10 November!
Register and find out more!

CoAct Webinar
2021-01-27 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Paris)
Participatory evaluation is an approach that aims at giving voice to the stakeholders of an intervention in its evaluation design, process and results. This webinar will shed light on the specificities of this methodology, as well as challenges and opportunities related to its application in citizen science.
The aim of the webinar is to furthermore provide an overview on co-evaluation as a strategy and to discuss which respective approaches and options have been available for a long time in participatory research and citizen science, how they have been received, what opportunities they have opened up, what obstacles have been overcome, but also what we can learn from them for the future.
Find out more here.

Add yourself to the map!
2021-02-01 - 2021-07-31
Are you running a Citizen Observatory, or a community-based environmental monitoring Citizen Science project? We would love to profile your initiative and raise your visibility amongst the citizen science community. Please add yourself to the map! In this form you can describe your institution, your initiative, and be part of the landscape of citizen-science actors in Europe and even beyond!

Webinar - Lessons from the LandSense project
2021-02-03 14:00 - 15:30 (Europe/Paris)
The LandSense project, which recently ended, was hugely successful, with a number of useful lessons and outcomes. On 3 February, 14:00-15:30 (CET), the team behind the project will be sharing some of their experiences and findings at an ECSA/EU-Citizen.Science webinar.
Attendance is free, and the event will be held in English. You can register for the event now.

Roadshow event No. 4 (Scotland)
2021-02-09 | Online, Slovenia
Date: Tuesday 9 February 2021
Location: online event
Agenda:
10.00-10.20h Welcome and introduction
10.20- 10.50h Presentation: Setting the scene
10.50- 11.20h Presentation: Demonstration of a Citizen Observatory
11.20- 12.05h Breakout sessions
12.05- 12.50h Plenary discussion on CO implementation: social and technological dimensions
12.50- 13.00h Recap and closing of the Roadshow event

The WeObserve Scotland Roadshow took place on 9 February 2021, with a focus on the potential of citizen observatories for flood risk management. The Roadshow was therefore addressed to local authorities, regional/national policy-makers, scientists and experts in Scotland and aimed to demonstrate the potential and practical implementation of a citizen observatory for flood risk management. The event allowed the 38 participants to learn about the basic principles of citizen observatories, providing participants with insights of citizen science and citizen observatories and demonstrating how decision-makers are using the information provided by citizens.
The Roadshow began with an introduction to citizen observatories and the current situation of flood management in Scotland. The Alto Adriatico Water Authority (AWAA) then showcased the impact of Citizen Observatories, by sharing their work with a Citizen Observatory in the management of the Brenta-Bacchiglione river basin.
Based on this introduction, in small breakout groups, the participants discussed key opportunities and challenges for Citizen Observatories in flood management. Key opportunities of COs were perceived to consist of the novel means to engage stakeholders and communities at risk, prioritising flood alleviation efforts, providing data at different scales, and assist with planning and land management. Key challenges of COs were considered to pertain to data quality, consistency and accuracy; data and knowledge sharing across actors; and ensuring stakeholder engagement and participation in the long run.
Following these discussions, a plenary discussion was held on the social and technological dimensions of citizen observatories. Specifically, this discussion highlighted the need to involve relevant stakeholders when developing and running COs; also, what drives community ownership, engagement and momentum will differ from one CO to another and needs to be carefully considered in each case.
Please download here the full report of the WeObserve Roadshow in Scotland.

2nd ACT International Synergy Conference
2021-02-11 09:30 - 2021-02-12 16:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The ACT Consortium invites to the Conference science and innovation leaders, decision-makers, researchers and practitioners ready to collaborate, co-create and co-produce gender equality in R&I. The purpose of this conference is to report on the contribution of the H2020 ACT project to advance gender equality in research and innovation in the EU. The approach developed by ACT is based on the concept of Community of Practice (CoP). ACT created, developed and supported eight CoPs, as well as a range of tools to help CoPs operate at institutional, inter-institutional, and EU-wide levels, and keep advancing best practice for gender equality in R&I.
WeObserve will participate in the event in two sessions. On the first day, 11 February at 10:15 – 10:45, Uta Wehn will present the CoPs and Citizen Science in H2020 WeObserve project. On the second day, 12 February at 10:00 – 11:00 she will also participate on a plenary session where key lessons will be presented on how to create, develop, support and create value for members of a CoP.
More information, as well as the program, is available here.
REGISTRATION is open!

52nd UN Statistical Commission Side Events
2021-02-15 02:00 - 04:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The UNCTAD together with the WeObserve partner, Dilek Fraisl, and colleagues from the WeObserve SDGs Community of Practice are presenting on ‘Contribution of Citizen Science Data to SDG Monitoring’ at the 52nd UN Statistical Commission Side Events. The session will take place on February 15th, 2021, at 2:00 pm CET. To see the full program or find out more, please visit here.

Open Science Conference 2021
2021-02-17 10:45 - 2021-02-19 15:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The Open Science Conference 2021 is the 8th international conference of the Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science. The annual conference is dedicated to the Open Science movement and provides a unique forum for researchers, librarians, practitioners, infrastructure providers, policy makers, and other important stakeholders to discuss the latest and future developments in Open Science.
This year’s conference will especially focus on the effects and impact of (global) crises and associated societal challenges, such as the Corona pandemic or the climate change, to open research practices and science communication in the context of the digitisation of science. And vice versa, how open practices help to cope with crises. Overall, the conference addresses topics around Open Science such as:

Effects and impact of current crises on open research practices and science communication
Learnings from crises to sustainably ensure the opening of science in the future
Innovations to support Open Science practices and their application and acceptance in scientific communities
Scientific benefit of Open Science practices and their impact in society such as coping with crises
Open Science education and science communication to different target groups in the broad public

For registration and programme please visit here.

'Bridging the gap to facilitate selection and image analysis activities for land surface monitoring' webinar
2021-02-18 15:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The 3rd and final PHIDIAS Webinar of the series, this time dedicated to Use Case 2: Big Data Earth Observations (EO). “Bridging the gap to facilitate selection and image analysis activities for land surface monitoring” is taking place next 18th of February at 15:00 CET.
Optical and radar images observing the Earth’s land surface have become an essential source of information to address and analysis environmental issues. The diversity of Earth observation sensors make it possible to provide new insights into environmental monitoring. But as many recent diagnoses have shown, satellite imagery for environmental monitoring purposes is particularly underutilized by the land and natural resource management communities, the high level of technology and the need for digital resources required to use satellite imagery are the main reasons for this. In other hand THEIA scientific expertise centres have designed and implemented proof of concept of prototypes of new algorithms that meet the information needs of environmental monitoring stakeholders, such as land cover, soil moisture or natural vegetation Biomass.
More information about the event, the agenda, etc. is available here. To register and join the webinar, please visit here.

COS4CLOUD Webinar
2021-02-24 15:00 - 16:30 (Europe/Paris)
Cos4Cloud will be running an ECSA/EU-Citizen.Science webinar to share the project’s progress so far.
This is a chance for the citizen science community, and anyone else with an interest in this project, to find out more and put their questions to the project team.
Attendance is free, and the event will be held in English – although questions are welcomed in other languages, and we will do our best to translate them! More details (speakers, etc.) will be shared soon, but you can register for the evehttps://portal.ogc.org/index.php?nt now.

Third REINFORCE webinar
2021-02-26 03:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The third REINFORCE webinar titled “Discovering the unexplored deep marine environment” will be held on the 26th of February at 3PM CET.
Deep underwater neutrino telescopes as KM3NeT measure neutrino and environmental events that constitute “noise” for the neutrino searches. These environmental events range from biological bioluminescence to acoustic signals from sea mammals. Citizens can support KM3NeTs scientists to increase the efficiency in the neutrino detection algorithms, providing input that will be crucial for two scientific tasks: the classification of noise types, and the identification of the frequency range and typical length of noise signals.
During this webinar, participants will learn how they can help in the advance of ground-breaking research, how a deep underwater neutrino telescope works, and how REINFORCE demonstrator about Deep Sea Hunters will be developed.
For more information, such as the agenda, the speakers’ list and the main takeaways visit here. To register and join the webinar, please click here.

WeObserve CoPs Forum #6
2021-03-15 - 2021-03-16
The WeObserve Communities of Practice (CoPs) Forum #6 will be held ONLINE on 15-16 March 2021 and will consist of plenary sessions, two parallel sessions and a dedicated workshop in order to help us achieve the following objectives:

Fertilisation of knowledge, ideas & insights on Citizen Science and Citizen Observatories across the four WeObserve Communities of Practice
Advancing our storytelling competencies
Capturing the ‘WeObserve way’ of consolidating knowledge on citizen science via Communities of Practice
Collecting the findings of the Interop-CoP and compile them in the 2nd Engineering Report.

The Forum is available to all the members of the WeObserve Communities of Practice! If you want to join the WeObserve CoPs and be part of their ongoing activities, learn more here!

MOOC: A Roadmap to Citizen Science Education
2021-03-22 - 2021-04-29
BRITEC MOOC “A roadmap to citizen science Education” will provide materials and stories of implementation from innovative citizen science education projects. Citizen Science Education is based on the assumption that teachers and researchers can find a common ground of discussion and develop practices that are advantageous both, for the education sector, and the science sector. Therefore, this course proposes a process of collaboration between teachers and researchers. It provides insights from the perspective of researchers that have supported teachers developing STEM learning scenarios that include scientific activities based on the needs of active research projects.
Find out more: https://www.buergerschaffenwissen.de/citizen-science/veranstaltungen/forum-citizen-science-2021

WeObserve Online Course
2021-03-22 - 2022-03-22
WeObserve is delighted to announce that the highly-rated online course Citizen Science Projects: How to Make a Difference will be available for a full year on FutureLearn starting from March 2021.
This online course, which ran in Autumn 2019 and 2020, has already introduced over a thousand learners from around the world to citizen science. It has been praised by previous learners of the course and has been awarded a 4.7-star rating on the FutureLearn website. One learner praised the course, saying:
This is the perfect course for people who want to create citizen science projects, it is full of tools and great links to know more.
Now you can join hundreds of learners in discovering the many different types of projects and how to get involved. You will discover how to lead a citizen science project, including the best practices for community buildings, how to identify the most pressing questions for your community, and tupos on data collection and interpretation. Furthermore, you will find out how to use your findings for educational purposes so as to create a positive change in the environment and your local area.
Having the course open for the full year will allow you to join ongoing discussions and take the course at a time which is suitable for you.
Sign-up here!

ECSA & EU-Citizen.Science webinar: Lessons and insights from WeObserve
2021-03-30 14:00 - 15:30 (Europe/Moscow) | Virtual
The next ECSA and EU-Citizen.Science webinar, being held on 30 March 2021 (14:00-15:30), focuses on our WeObserve project.
WeObserve tackles three key challenges that citizen observatories face: (1) awareness, (2) acceptability and (3) sustainability. Its overall mission is to create a sustainable ecosystem of citizen observatories that can systematically address these identified challenges and help move citizen science into the mainstream.
As the project draws to a conclusion, our team members will highlight what the project has learnt through its activities. Speakers include:

Gerid Hager (IIASA) – WeObserve in a nutshell
Uta Wehn (IHE Delft), Joan Maso (CREAF), Dilek Fraisl (IIASA) – WeObserve communities of practice: how to ‘do’ CoPs and some reflections
Mel Woods (University of Dundee) – Accelerating the uptake of citizen observatories through MOOCs and open data challenges
Joan Maso (CREAF), Valantis Tsiakos (ICCS) – Data interoperability and standardisation: using interoperability experiments and hackathons to address data-related challenges in citizen observatories
Q&A session, Margaret Gold (Citizen Science Lab)

Register here for free. Download here the full agenda.

CitSciVirtual: Local, Global, Connected
2021-05-01 - 2021-05-31
Events throughout the month of May, 2021 will engage practitioners and researchers in the field of citizen science (educators, community leaders, scientists, students, technologists, data managers and more), in sharing the ideas and innovations that make work in this field thrive. Across this broad field, and taking into consideration that we do science better, together – and through CitSciVirtual all interested parties can connect to learn from and inspire each other. Registration will open on February! Please visit here for more.

Information Management CS Track Workshop
2021-05-05 12:00 - 13:30 (Europe/Moscow)
This workshop is about exploring tools that can be used to collect, analyse and share 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. Three facets of our work so far will be addressed: (1) development of a database of CS projects and preliminary data analysis; and the approach and methods/tools to use for (2) analytics and (3) communication of results.
More information about the event here.

Workshop-Common Challenges in Citizen Science
2021-05-10 10:00 - 12:00 (Europe/Moscow)
Scivil (Scivil.be) is bringing together citizen science actors to exchange experiences, succes stories and challenges in an online workshop. The workshop is aimed at citizen science project initiators and coordinators and will be guided by Stickydot (stickydot.eu/). The workshop will take place in English on Zoom on May 10th from 10:00 to 12:00.
More info: https://www.scivil.be/event/online-workshop-common-challenges-citizen-science

REINFORCE Project Webinar
2021-05-11 15:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The technology developed to study fundamental physics can be applied to the development of frameworks that may have a significant impact on society. The Atmospheric Muons have unique potential to probe structures and provide insight in a series of issues, ranging from volcano live monitoring to applications in archaeology or use for non- invasive and non-destructive control processes in the industry.
Muography is an innovative technique using secondary cosmic rays produced in the atmosphere, the most energetic of which have the property to cross ordinary matter over relevant distances (from meters to kilometers). The detection of those particles after any type of target allows therefore the characterization of the distribution and the density of the matter inside the target, as it is done for instance in medical imaging with X-rays. There is a strong societal impact of this technique, which is mostly passive and therefore adapted to any field of investigation: controls, risks assessment, hazards management.
In the framework of REINFORCE, citizens will be provided with open data detected with distributed networks of cosmic ray detectors and will contribute in performing inquiries at the interplay between cosmic ray research and its applications.
The webinar aims to give an overview of the Cosmic Muons Images Large Scale Citizen Science demonstrator and how it will be implemented in order to engage citizens in the scientific research, showcasing the tasks that citizens will be asked to perform and how their input will be fundamental to study geological phenomena and archaeology research by using Cosmic Rays.
More info: https://reinforceeu.eu/events/webinars/how-use-cosmic-rays-study-geosciences-and-archaeology

Hard-to-reach groups in Citizen Science & Science Communication
2021-05-18 14:00 - 16:00 (Europe/Moscow)
With a claim to democraticize science and actively involve the general population, science communication and citizen science are increasingly turning their attention to so-called “hard-to-reach groups”. But who or what are hard-to-reach groups? What strategies are proving helpful and effective? How can diversity and inclusion be ensured? The OeAD Center for Citizen Science would like to reflect on these questions with experts from different fields, disciplines and institutions during a keynote speech and a panel discussion to show through practical examples how “hard-to-reach groups” can be reached in the best possible way. The online event will be in German.
More info: https://zentrumfuercitizenscience.at/de/veranstaltungen/detail/2021/05/18/wissenschaft-fuer-alle-hard-to-reach-groups-in-citizen-science-und-wissenschaftskommunikation/

Virtual Citizen Science Summer School
2021-06-14 - 2021-06-25
Virtual Citizen Science Summer School: Transforming research through public participation.
A summer school for early career reseachers (ECR) and citizen science practitioners is hosted by the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich.
In order to ensure planning security for organizers and participants, the Citizen Science Summer School will take place online. The school will last 2 weeks: 14 – 25 June 2021. Daily learning and training activities will make up 4 – 5 hrs, with ample time for discussion, independent and group work. The school aims to facilitate participants to identify and develop the skills needed to engage in participatory research.
For a first overview, please have a look at the preliminary program and the leaflet.

Citizen Science for Policy across Europe
2021-06-22 11:00 - 12:30 (Europe/Moscow)
EU-Citizen.Science is inviting representatives from ministries across Europe and at the regional and local levels to engage in a discussion about citizen science and its benefits for policy making.
The EU-Citizen.Science project – with the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the European Commission – is pleased to invite you to the event “Citizen Science for Policy across Europe” to be held online on June 22nd 2021 at 11:00-12:30 PM CEST, as a satellite event of the European Research and Innovation Days 2021.
Specifically, the event will:

Explore the current state of citizen science in Europe to enhance synergies across borders.
Have open discussions by presenting good practices and success stories about citizen science operating at different levels, highlighting the barriers that affect the development of citizen science and providing solutions to overcome them to produce a powerful policy decision-making tool.
Foster collaborations among different countries to promote citizen science, establishing common paths.

The agenda can be found here.
Two options are available to attend the event and have an opportunity to interact with speakers:

Click here to register for the event on Zoom;
or join us directly on the ECSA YouTube channel on the day itself.
