New colleagues joined ECSA’s HQ

ECSA community and activities are growing and so is the team working at the HQ. At the end of 2021, new collaborators joined us bringing in their experience and contributing to the diversity of expertises and approaches.

François Jost, from Peru : “I am an environmental scientist who has dedicated the last 15 years to community climate action research with a focus on sustainable development both in rural and urban areas. I am glad to join ECSA’s team and support the generation of knowledge by encouraging the growth of public participation in science. My role at ECSA is project officer for the ROSiE and STEP CHANGE projects.”


Simona Cerrato, from Italy: “After 30 years in science communication, I gladly joined the growing field of citizen science. I look forward to being in person in the amazing Berlin, meeting my colleagues over a beer, and contributing to ECSA's growth into new territories with a focus on diversity, inclusion and gender equity. My role at ESA is Communications and Community manager.”

New special collection: 'Citizen Science in Higher Education'

New special collection on Citizen Science in Higher Education, edited by Colleen Hitchcock, Heather Vance-Chalcraft, and Maria Aristeidou, has been released in the journal 'Citizen Science: Theory and Practice'. The 12 new articles explore the ways both online and field-based citizen science can be integrated in higher education as a tool for teaching and learning, professional development, and community building. You can watch a discussion on the special collection papers here.

The new article "Understanding citizen scientists’ willingness to invest in, and advocate for, conservation” proposes a social-psychological framework to investigate citizen scientists’ experience, providing an evidence-based approach to evaluate programmes. The main findings were that participation generates benefits aligned with key motivations that are met; and that both, motivations and benefits are associated with personal investment and advocacy. You can download the paper as an open access PDF before 10th February 2022.

Citizen Science recommendations

Recommendations about Citizen Science were submitted recently to the irish government Oireachtas committee on education, research, science, and innovation

Digital action inside and beyond universities during the pandemic 

A collection of examples from three main forms of digital action: maker culture, citizen science and hacktivism. Carried out by the HEIDI EU-funded project. Find it in this link.

News from the CSI-COP Project

CSI-COP held a blended Year2-end project meeting at partner venue, University of Patras, Patras-Greece in December. This was the first time some partners were able to meet in person since the kick-off meeting in February 2020. Earthwatch’s Dr. Luigi Ceccaroni, Advisory Board members attended CSI-COP’s Year2-end meeting in-person. The face-to-face experience was invaluable for bonding. However the ongoing COVID-19 variants’ risk prevented all CSI-COP partners from travelling to Greece.

CSI-COP project features in an article ‘The Cookie Jar: Protecting Children’s Data Online’ in the January / February 2022 issue of the International Teacher Magazine (ITM): Link to article 

EU funded CS Track project e-magazine featured an interview with CSI-COP’s Dr. Huma Shah about online privacy: Link to interview

 Participation in survey about open science

Anyone who has had experience, or has heard, or even has read about particular challenges of practising Open Science, please submit a short description of your experience, using this  link. The case collection is for the benefit of the entire open science community as we will put together an online resource that can then be used by anyone and the cases will also be used in preparing training materials on OS within the ROSiE project.

New programs at UCL

This September UCL will be launching two brand new courses: the MSc in Citizen Science and the MSc in Ecology and Data Science. These innovative courses are the first of their kind globally, and will be taught within our purpose-built People and Nature Lab at our new UCL East campus at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

News from the Jug Band Colline Metallifere

The Jug Band Colline Metallifere is an international and inter-generational collective launched in 2018 based in Southern Tuscany. It builds on 15 years of experience in interdisciplinary projects, including citizen science since 2008 with the BuioMetria Partecipativa initiative.

The collective in 2019 was also proposed as one of the sub-projects of the Empowerment, Inclusiveness, and Equity working group of ECSA, and since 2020 has been working to propose "conce[rt|p]s"

To understand what this is about, and to learn about JBCM plans for 2022 where you too could collaborate, please see the live show streamed in last December on Deejay Fox Radio from Milano, Italy (and translated into English)

For more information and booking: micalosapevo@pibinko.org or whatsapp +393317539228

International Survey Citizen Science for Health

The Working Group Citizen Science for Health, established at the 2020 ECSA Assembly, has developed an international, MULTILINGUAL SURVEY that aims to document current dynamics, opportunities and barriers of CITIZEN SCIENCE FOR HEALTH, and to come to better grips with the distinctiveness of Citizen Science in the health domain as compared to other domains. The Working Group encourages you to fill out the survey, and to circulate it amongst the stakeholders you think should have their voice heard on the topic. Please consider specifically citizen and patient groups working on some form of what we or they could recognize as Citizen Science.

The Survey is available in English, German and Dutch, and will soon become available in French and Spanish. Other languages can be added to suit the needs of your country / region. In case you are interested in adding a new language, please contact g.g.a.remmers@utwente.nl    This is the link to the survey

Open Materials of the CoAct Citizen Social Science School online! 

Last September 2021, 40 students from 20 different countries and 4 continents participated to the first Citizen Social Science school. All seminars and workshops were video recorded and are now openly accessible for anyone interested, together with the presentations of all speakers. Do not miss this opportunity to learn more about the many social dimensions of Citizen Science!
CSS School Open Materials

Enabling direct communication in Citizen Science Apps with the new "User Mentions" feature on SPOTTERON

Imagine a Citizen Scientist asking a question inside your project's App. What if a reply directly reaches the user on the smartphone with a beep as soon it is posted? This next level of immediacy is now a reality with the new "User Mention" feature for all Apps on the SPOTTERON platform. 

The new functionality enables direct and personal communication amongst users and the project's team by simply mentioning others with "@username" directly in a community comment. Read more about how "User Mentions" work in this blog post

In October we organized a workshop on (Environmental) Health-Citizen Science Dilemmas under the GDPR at the Brocher Foundation, Geneva, and online, two artists accompanied us.  Together with them and resulting from our collective brainstorming, we made a booklet, which can also be freely downloaded. The booklet received the support of the Brocher Foundation and of the SensJus project.