European Citizen Science
from 31/07/2022 until 30/06/2026
The European Citizen Science (ECS) is a project funded by the European Union (HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ERA-01-60; agreement number 101058509), lasting 48 months (1 August 2022 to 31 July 2026) with the overall objective to widen and strengthen the citizen science community in Europe. It builds upon the previous European funded actions of the EU-Citizen.Science project and Cos4Cloud and on the enormous achievements in citizen science over the past decade. ECS is coordinated by the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) (Berlin, Germany) and involves the participation of 21 organisations from 15 countries (see Table 1).
The ECS project is committed to push modern science towards open science as a modus operandi. It will lead to a number of key scientific, societal and policy impacts which will contribute to make Europe positioned as a leader in citizen science throughout the entire research and innovation system. ECS aims to widen the European citizen science community through capacity building and awareness raising activities such as the creation of a European Citizen Science Academy and the establishment of a network of citizen science ambassadors.
Aim
Maximum attention will be paid to expanding and engaging the citizen science community in Europe and those involved and interested in citizen science, and this effort will be supported by a strategic and effective communication and dissemination plan. Diverse stakeholders will be involved in the co-design and co-creation of a large variety of services, strategic priorities, training opportunities and policy recommendations. A key focus is on inclusivity, which will be achieved through dedicated actions such as engaging libraries affiliated to the Public Libraries 2030 network to attract underrepresented and underserved publics, as well as ad-hoc support to countries and regions lacking citizen science networks, platforms and policy recognition.
ECS will create extensive capacity building opportunities by engaging in particular excellent researchers in a variety of disciplines, for example through the involvement of the Marie Curie Alumni Association, and emerging Horizon Europe Missions, Clusters, and wider European Research Area (ERA) activities, to allow easy access for newcomers in citizen science activities. The engagement of the Global Citizen Science Partnership will guarantee wide international cooperation.
ECS will provide open collaborative spaces where citizen scientists can familiarise with the concept of “open and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data with open and FAIR tools” and get actively engaged, while connecting with existing e-infrastructures such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) through the collaborative development of data and metadata services.
These efforts will result in a number of key scientific, societal and policy impacts which will strongly contribute to securing Europe's global position as a leader in citizen science throughout the entire research and innovation system, and further strengthen the global citizen science community.
About funding
Funding bodies: European Union
Created June 25, 2024, 7:47 a.m.
Updated June 25, 2024, 7:47 a.m.