ECSA Newsletter

August / September 2016


Dear ECSA Community,

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Johannes Vogel, as Chair of ECSA, has been elected Chair of the newly established Open Science Policy Platform by Robert-Jan Smits, Director General of Directorate General Research & Innovation. Work in the platform, responding to Member States interests, include adapting reward and evaluation systems, alternative models for open access, publishing and management of research data (including archiving), altmetrics, guiding principles for optimal reuse of research data,  development and use of standards, fostering research integrity and developing citizen science.
We will follow and share the interesting achievements around citizen science in the Platform.
Dr. Vogel is the General Director of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, where ECSA's Headquarters are currently hosted.

The first briefing on Citizen Science (CS) for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) was held on 7th September 2016 at the European Parliament in Brussels. The event was organised by ECSA Policy Working Group (WG) and sponsored by the MEPs Michèle Rivasi, Clare Moody and Dario Tamburrano. This unique event gathered some of the leaders in CS in Europe and opened a direct dialogue with MEPs which will strengthen the link between CS and policy. You can read more below.


On another notice, the ECSA Headquarter is happy to announce the integration of a new team member: André Mascarenhas. André is the scientist in charge of ECSA's contribution to the LandSense Project. LandSense: A Citizen Observatory and Innovation Marketplace for Land Use and Land Cover Monitoring, is a H2020 project coordinated by IIASA that started on the 1st of September. The role of ECSA in the Consortium is to analyse the requirements of stakeholders for their engagement and its efficiency. More information about this project will be posted soon in ECSA's webpage.

The 10 Principles of Citizen Science are now also available in Russian and Welsh! And soon in Finnish!! Thank you very much for your contributions! Please let us know if you can translate them into an additional language!

In this Newsletter you will find News from ECSA Working Groups, Members and Partners. We received and collected information about Citizen Science Publications & Tools that we think you will enjoy and use in your work, and finally we list upcoming Calls & Events, in which we hope to meet you!

Enjoy the coming citizen science autumn!
The ECSA Team

ECSA Field Notes


MEP Briefing on Citizen Science
Key players in the development of Citizen Science (CS) in Europe engaged Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) with presentations, key notes and discussions. Opening remarks were given by Johannes Vogel, Chair of ECSA, the MEPs Michèle Rivasi, Clare Moody and Dario Tamburrano. Martin Brocklehurst, Chairman of the ECSA Policy WG, and Marc Lipinski, member of the ECSA Policy WG, acted as moderators.

The keynote address on the international perspective on CS was given by Professor Jacqueline McGlade, Chief Scientist at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Hanny van Harkel, told how she became a citizen scientist and discovered a rare astronomical object joining the Galaxy Zoo project; Muki Haklay, Director at Excites at University College London (UCL), introduced the Horizon2020 DITOs project (Doing-It-Together-Science); John Palmer, representing Movement Ecology Lab, provided an insight on how CS is being used in Spain to tackle the spread of vector carrying mosquitoes. At conclusion of the day, an interactive session supported by Aleksandra Berditchevskaia (Tekiu Ltd) and Gaia Agnello (ECSA), both DITOs Project Officers, stimulated interaction between audience and panelists. By opening dialogue with policy-makers, ECSA aims to raise awareness on the relevance of CS to policy and therefore, enhance CS in Europe.
Read a complete report and access to the presentations next week in ECSA website.


How “Responsible” is Citizen Science?
Both Citizen Science and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) are concepts covering a wide range of issues. Through the ECSA Working Group on CS & Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and our involvement in the DITOs project, we want to explore how these concepts intersect and can be mutually supporting. In order to start to collectively address questions and involve Citizen Science communities in these discussions, ECSA and Caren Cooper run a series of twitter chat sessions under #CitSciChat focused on the topic: Is Citizen Science an approach for “Responsible” research?

Our first RRI&CS #CitSciChat session took place on Wednesday, 27 July 2016. The 1-hour session was meant to introduce the general topic and gather insights and feedback from the European and global CS community. Find a report on the discussion on the ECSA blog.



Webinar “Citizen Science in a Global Perspective”
The webinar “Citizen Science in a Global Perspective” had the aim of discussing the concept of Citizen Science in the community of science communication scholars and to get an impression on latest developments around the globe. The event, organized by Simone Rödder, Bruce Lewenstein and Claudia Göbel, took please in July 2016 and you can view the recording here.

 

News from ECSA Members


Citizen Science activities in new H2020 Project StemForYouth
OpenSystems group, from the Universitat of Barcelona, is participating in the H2020 funded Project StemForYouth, that aims to promote STEM education by key scientific challenges and enhance the impact on our life and career perspectives. The project, coordinated by Warsaw University of Technology, started on 1st May 2016 and will end on the 31 October 2018. StemForYouth will find new ways to attract young people to Science and Technology and OpenSystems will contribute by introducing Citizen Science at schools in a radical manner and in an urban context. We will focus on human mobility and collective decision making topics and the experiments will be performed in Barcelona, Warsaw and Athens.

Contact: Josep Perelló

 

News from ECSA Partners


The CitizenScience.org annual conference will be held in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, May 17-20th, 2017
There are many ways to participate and share your work. Find out more below in our Calls & Events section, or check the CSA2017 Conference information.


 

Citizen Science Publications & Tools


European Handbook of Crowdsourced Geographic Information
Cristina Capineri, Cristina Capineri, Muki Haklay, Haosheng Huang, Vyron Antoniou, Juhani Kettunen, Frank Ostermann, Ross Purves (eds.)

"This new open access book focuses on the study of the remarkable new source of geographic information that has become available in the form of user-generated content accessible over the Internet through mobile and Web applications. The exploitation, integration and application of these sources, termed volunteered geographic information (VGI) or crowdsourced geographic information (CGI), offer scientists an unprecedented opportunity to conduct research on a variety of topics at multiple scales and for diversified objectives.

The Handbook is organized in five parts, addressing the fundamental questions: What motivates citizens to provide such information in the public domain, and what factors govern/predict its validity? What methods might be used to validate such information? Can VGI be framed within the larger domain of sensor networks, in which inert and static sensors are replaced or combined by intelligent and mobile humans equipped with sensing devices? What limitations are imposed on VGI by differential access to broadband Internet, mobile phones, and other communication technologies, and by concerns over privacy? How do VGI and crowdsourcing enable innovation applications to benefit human society?" Follow this link to read the Handbook.

Contact: Muki Haklay


Analyzing the Role of Citizen Science in Modern Research
(Advances in Knowledge Acquisition, Transfer, and Management)

by Luigi Ceccaroni (Editor), Jaume Piera (Editor)

"As the need for sustainable development practices around the world continues to grow, it has become imperative for citizens to become actively engaged in the global transition. By evaluating data collected from various global programs, researchers are able to identify strategies and challenges in implementing civic engagement initiatives. Analyzing the Role of Citizen Science in Modern Research focuses on analyzing data on current initiatives and best practices in citizen engagement and education programs across various disciplines. Highlighting emergent research and application techniques within citizen science initiatives, this publication appeals to academicians, researchers, policy makers, government officials, technology developers, advanced-level students and program developers interested in launching or improving citizen science programs across the globe."
You can pre-order this book here.

Contact: Luigi Ceccaroni and Jaume Piera


Citizen science for all – A guide for citizen science practioners
As result of intense collaboration between a wide range of stakeholders in the German speaking citizen science community, the Citizen Create Knowledge project (GEWISS) has published a guide for citizen science practitioners. It describes how citizen science is practiced in Germany and how this participatory approach can be used in different research disciplines and issue areas – such as education, conservation or the arts and humanities. An English translation is now ready for download here.

Contact: David Ziegler and Anett Richter


A five paper supplement on citizen science has now been published in the open access journal BMC Ecology
These manuscripts present findings from the analysis of environmental and social data from Open Air Laboratories (OPAL), a UK-wide public engagement in science programme which is approaching its 10 year anniversary.  The papers touch on some central themes in the field of citizen science such as methodological approaches, motivations, data quality, operational challenges (& potential solutions) and evaluation. The supplement includes:
 
1.      Surveying the citizen science landscape: an exploration of the design, delivery and impact of citizen science through the lens of the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) programme
Linda Davies, Roger Fradera, Hauke Riesch and Poppy Lakeman-Fraser
 
2.      Initiating and continuing participation in citizen science for natural history
Glyn Everett and Hilary Geoghegan
 
3.      Quality control in public participation assessments of water quality: the OPAL Water Survey
N L. Rose, S. D. Turner, B. Goldsmith, L. Gosling and T. A. Davidson
 
4.     Differences between urban and rural hedges in England revealed by a citizen science project
Laura Gosling, Tim H. Sparks, Yoseph Araya, Martin Harvey and Janice Ansine
 
5.      To have your citizen science cake and eat it? Delivering research and outreach through Open Air Laboratories (OPAL)
       Poppy Lakeman-Fraser, Laura Gosling, Andy J. Moffat, Sarah E. West, Roger Fradera, Linda Davies, Maxwell, A. Ayamba and René van der Wal

The papers can be found under 'recent articles' on the BMC Ecology homepage and on the supplement page here.
Dr Poppy Lakeman Fraser also produced a blog to support the supplement.
 
Contact: Dr Poppy Lakeman Fraser



Learning and the transformative potential of citizen science
Györgyi Bela, Taru Peltola, Juliette C. Young, Bálint Balázs, Isabelle Arpin, György Pataki, Jennifer Hauck, Eszter Kelemen, Leena Kopperoinen, Ann Van Herzele, Hans Keune, Susanne Hecker, Monika Suškevičs, Helen E. Roy, Pekka Itkonen, Mart Külvik, Miklós László, Corina Basnou, Joan Pino and Aletta Bonn.
Conservation Biology, Version of Record online: 24 JUN 2016 | DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12762

"The number of collaborative initiatives between scientists and volunteers (i.e., citizen science) is increasing across many research fields. The promise of societal transformation together with scientific breakthroughs contributes to the current popularity of citizen science (CS) in the policy domain. We examined the transformative capacity of citizen science in particular learning through environmental CS as conservation tool." Read the article.



Citizen Science as democratization of science?
Read here the interview with Dick Kasperowski about different types of Citizen Science, democratization of science and success criteria of Citizen Science projects.



Future Brief: Identifying emerging risks for environmental policies
The latest issue of the Future Brief from the series "Science for Environment Policy" produced by the European Commission, includes a text about the roles and contribution of citizen science -together with other tools- for producing early warning signals and for helping policy makers take decisions in these times of rapid and extensive global changes. Find the publication here.


Pokémon-Go players could capture 400 years of wildlife sightings in 6 days
"Pokémon-Go encourages millions of players to explore their local area collecting imaginary creatures. However, if the Pokémon they caught were instead observations of real species they could produce more wildlife observations in 6 days than have been collated over the past 400 years by naturalists." Read the article here.



The new reference database about Citizen Science
CitizenScience.org is happy to announce a new reference database for citizen science. It includes a list of more than 2,400 citations, including journal articles, reports, books, and guides. This curated list, which will grow over time, has done the work for you of searching across multiple libraries and keywords, to provide a first place to look for citizen science references.
You may view this new post here.



The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) has just released an updated version of the BioCollect system
"BioCollect is a sophisticated, yet simple to use tool developed by the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) in collaboration with over 100 organisations which are actively involved in field data capture. It has been developed to support the needs of scientists, ecologists, citizen scientists and natural resource managers in the field-collection and management of biodiversity, ecological and natural resource management (NRM) data. The tool is hosted by the ALA and is free for public use.

The update includes many new features for citizen science as well as support for systematic ecological surveys and activity-based works projects, particularly those associated with environmental interventions, restoration & recovery, etc. The BioCollect Team has also started some work on an iPhone/iPad app for BioCollect, with more work planned to complete this and the development of a mobile app for the Android platform. Both designed for off-line use and maximising use of standard device GPS, camera, media playback, speaker and microphone features.
"



Follow @IamCitSci to learn and share experiences on #CitizenScience
@IamCitSci is a rotating account in twitter managed by US researcher and citizen science advocate Caren Cooper @CoopSciScoop in cooperation with @SciStarter. Every week a special guest hosts the account, creating in that way the opportunity for every body to discuss, share ideas and learn from eachother  experiences on #CitizenScience. To become a guest contact @CoopSciScoop.
 
Calls & Events

ECSA event: European Stakeholder Round Table on Citizen and DIY Science and RRI


ECSA is organizing a European Stakeholder Round Table on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Good Practice from Citizen and DIY Science. The event is organised as part of the recently awarded EU Horizon 2020 project ´DITOs – Do It Together Science` and will be held on Tuesday 8th November 2016 in Berlin at the Museum für Naturkunde. Please find more information, a draft agenda and registration via this link.

Contact: Gaia Agnello and Claudia Göbel
 

The 2017 annual conference of the Citizen Science Association will be held May 17 - 20 in Saint Paul, Minnesota

Join practitioners and researchers from across the field of Citizen Science to advance our practice. Sessions will span disciplines and sectors, with a focus on making citizen science relevant and useful to more communities. Discuss successes and challenges in designing, implementing, sustaining, and evaluating projects. Share your project innovations and questions with colleagues across this diverse and expanding field of practice.
 
The conference will feature keynote speakers, concurrent sessions and poster presentations (call for abstracts open now through Oct 10th), a citizen science festival hosted by the Science Museum of Minnesota, and opportunities to showcase your project in front of a growing community!

We are seeking funding in order to keep conference registration fees as low as possible.

Want to Participate?

•             Check-out the Citizen Science Association Working Groups
•             Read about the four ways to share your work at the conference and submit an abstract
•             Gather colleagues and organize a symposium
•             Influence the conference program: sign-up to review proposals to make your voice count
 

First Citizen Science Day in Austria


Due to various projects and initiatives citizen science has become more and more popular in Austria. For several years the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) has been conducting international citizen science projects. The Natural History Museum Vienna (NHM) not only carries out projects, but beyond that offers a physical space for citizen science activities. Since 2015 the Center for Citizen Science (at the OeAD), which was initiated by the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, has been offering information and service to scientists and citizens.

During the first Citizen Science Day on 11th October, these institutions will present current citizen science activities from Austria. Interesting talks and interactive stations will invite visitors to meet scientists and learn more about possibilities to participate in research. Follow this "link" for more information about the program and registration.
 

Call for Abstracts for the 3rd Austrian Citizen Science Conference


www.citizen-science.at and www.ages.at invite you to propose a presentation for the 3rd Austrian Citizen Science Conference on March 2-3, 2017 in Vienna.
 
Under the motto "Expanding Horizons" numerous sessions can be found at https://www.ages.at/expandinghorizons/ on many different aspects of citizen science. If you are interested in submitting an abstract for one of the sessions you can find more detailed information on the conference website. The Call for Abstracts is open from 15th of September until 15th of November 2016. The conference language is German, but there will be English sessions as well. We are looking forward to many interesting submissions!
 
Contact:
Florian Heigl
Daniel Dörler
Taru Sandén
 

12th International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics


Call for abstract and special session proposals

The Conference will be held from June 20-23, 2017 in Budapest, Hungary hosted by the Corvinus Business School, Corvinus University of Budapest.
 
In 2017 the main theme of the conference will be ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS IN ACTION: BUILDING A REFLECTIVE AND INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY. The conference aims to bring together diverse sets of actors who are engaged in co-producing ecological economics insights and advice for responsible and creative pathways towards sustainability. We seek to open up disciplinary boundaries through collaboration and discussion, as well as through critical engagement and mutual learning with practitioners and local community efforts that aim to realise transformation towards sustainability.
 
We are pleased to invite you to submit an abstract and special session proposal through the conference website esee2017budapest.org. The deadline for submitting special session proposals is 7 October, 2016 and for abstract submission is 25 November, 2016.
 
You can download the complete call for papers and special sessions here.
The ESEE Summer School 2017, which is traditionally an integrated part of the conference, will take place on 18-20 June, 2017. For more details please visit the conference website.
 
We are looking forward to seeing you in Budapest!
 
Contact: György Pataki
Director of Research at Corvinus Business School, On Behalf of ESEE 2017 Local Organising Committee
 
Please, address all technical inquiries to: esee2017@wecotravel.hu
 

Global Experiment: Join in a worldwide cloud observation activity


Clouds are highly variable and predicting their future evolution is one of the main challenges facing climate scientists. Human observations of clouds around the world are valuable to compare to satellite remote sensing data.

Join in a worldwide cloud observation activity as part of the International Science Center & Science Museum Day (ISCSMD). The objective of the global experiment is to make observations of cloud coverage using the Globe Observer app prior to the ISCSMD during the first two weeks of October 2016. GLOBE Observer app is downloadable from Google Play or the App Store.


Find out here how to participate.

Register soon!
International Conference on Citizen Sciences and Fab Labs

On December 12-14, the International Annual Conference on the Participatory Researches, Citizen Sciences and Fab Labs takes place at the United Nations in Geneva. The organising NGO Objective Sciences International invites you to submit offers of contribution and take part in the conference. At the end of this webpage, you can find all accepted abstracts.

Contact: Thomas Egli

 

Science Hack Day Berlin:
Final Hack Presentations


If anyone is in Berlin next weekend, here’s a chance to catch up with the Berlin science hacking community who you heard about at the ECSA conference citizen science disco.
On Sunday, 25th September 15:00-18:00 there will be the final presentation of projects that have been created during Science Hack Day Berlin 2016.

 
Find more information here
 

Call for applications: Registration opens for EvoKE 2017

The first meeting on Evolutionary Knowledge for Everyone in Porto 6-8 February 2017

Evolutionary biology is important in Europeans citizens’ lives, yet is often misunderstood. Promoting the public’s scientific literacy in evolutionary biology is crucial in an age where humans are increasingly able to sculpt the course of evolution.
 
EvoKE 2017 aims to attract a diverse community of evolutionary biologists, science communicators, science education researchers, teachers, museum practitioners and policy makers to plan and discuss the implementation of collaborative European wide projects that will contribute to increasing the European public’s literacy in evolutionary biology.

The three day conference is structured around a select number of plenary talks and several break-out sessions on diverse topics ranging from evolution in formal education to evolution in art. Participants will actively work together to identify key issues and to pave the way towards collaborative projects.
 
Registration fee: 65 Euros
 
Besides covering meeting expenses, the price of the registration also includes 3 nights (5th, 6th and 7th) accommodation at Moov Porto Hotel (http://hotelmoov.com/en/hoteis/moov-hotel-downtown-oporto/), 3 lunches and the coffee breaks.
Participants are expected to arrive on the Sunday 5th Feb and stay for the full length of the meeting.
 
Applications are now open at http://bit.ly/EvoKE2017_registration
Deadline for registration: 7th November 2016
For more information on the meeting, see:  https://evokeproject.org/
For questions please contact us at registration@evokeproject.org
See the Flyer
 

Call for ideas on challenges addressed by a future Horizon Prize on environmental Earth Observation

Contributions are expected until 22/09/2016

The Horizon Prizes aim at stimulating innovation and developing solutions to problems that matter to European citizens. Horizon Prizes are also known as inducement or challenge prizes, specify a target without prescribing how it may be achieved and offer a reward to those who most effectively meet the defined challenge. Prizes can also achieve a considerable leverage of private R&I investment and direct it towards solutions of particular societal challenges, providing a way to advance innovations that would not ordinarily develop through traditional routes (such as grants or procurements).
 
With the help of a group of independent experts, the European Commission is currently working on the design of a Horizon Prize in the field of environmental Earth Observation (EO), which could potentially be launched between 2017 and 2019. The purpose of this prize would be to incentivise innovative solutions based on Earth observation addressing a specific environmental challenge affecting European citizens.

With this call for ideas, we aim at collecting opinions from a wide range of stakeholders on the most pressing challenges that could be addressed by this prize. Inputs received will be used to define a short list of topics to be considered in the definition of the prize.

As boundary conditions, we are looking for specific environmental challenges which could be addressed with the use of the a wide range of Earth observation data and information (from remote sensing to in-situ observations, including notably crowdsourcing and citizen science); ideally, solutions to the challenge selected should create new opportunities for European industry, while making a difference in the lives of citizens.
 
Please note that this is not a call for solutions to a specific challenge, but a call for ideas on potential challenges that would be covered by a prize. A short series of questions have been prepared in order to guide you through this consultation but you are also very welcome to provide us with a document with your ideas that you can attach at the end of the survey.

Please do not hesitate to distribute this call among your contacts. Contributions are expected until 22/09/2016.
Direct link to the consultation.

Contact: Jose Miguel Rubio Iglesias
Policy Officer, European Commission, DG Research & Innovation I4, Climate Actions and Earth Observation, Earth Observation Sector.
 

Open Science Conference

Save the date: March 21-22, 2017

The Open Science Conference 2017 is the 4th international conference of the Leibniz Research Alliance Science 2.0. It is a continuation and development of the former Science 2.0 Conference. It is dedicated to the Open Science movement and provides a unique forum where researchers, librarians, practitioners, politicians, and other important stakeholders can discuss and exchange their ideas and experiences.

Call for Project Presentations
The thematic focus of this call for project presentations is on “open educational resources”. Open educational resources include course materials (print and digital), modules, streaming videos, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support open access to knowledge.
Within this context, this call invites librarians, scientists, and university lecturers to submit abstracts until September the 30th, 2016 to osc2017@zbw.eu.


For more information visit the conference webpage.
 

STATE Festival 2016 STATE OF EMOTION – The Sentimental Machine

Safe the date: November 4-5, Berlin
 
After its successful launch in 2014 with over 1200 visitors and 100 participants from over 20 countries, STATE Festival celebrates its second edition from November 4-5, 2016, in Berlin. Under the title “STATE OF EMOTION – The Sentimental Machine”, STATE Festival will again invite scientists, artists, makers, thinkers, doers and the curious public to come together and explore a scientific topic that is of our most personal concerns: Emotions. With lectures, panel discussions, installations, workshops, performances, open science formats and its overall focus on interaction and participation, STATE Festival will create an open and lively platform to foster interdisciplinary exploration and public exchange around a recent topic where science impacts society.

Find out more in the festival webpage.

www.ecsa.citizen-science.net


With any questions on ECSA or regarding the newsletter please contact
Soledad.Luna@mfn-berlin.de or Katrin.Vohland@citizen-science.net.
Copyright © 2016 Museum für Naturkunde Berlin / European Citizen Science Association, All rights reserved.


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