Erasmus+ EU project. February 2022 – April 2024.
In its efforts to encourage broader citizen participation in citizen science, the project is committed to sustainable citizen science development via digitalising adult citizen science training experiences and empowering adult citizens with essential competencies and skills in the partner regions.
Photo: Audiovisuals UB
The project produces a first evidence-based and future-focused report that provides insights to facilitate the sustainable regional development of citizen science (CS) and useful and legitimate strategies to guide the development of regional CS communities. The report summarizes the status quo of the behaviours, motivations and signals of change from citizenship to CS at the European level. It explores the needs and expectations of citizens, regional/local adults and higher educators for the development of the CS through questions and interviews.
In the second phase, the project designs a training program that adds value to the training of other CC projects (for example, EU-citizen.science, CoAct). The program guides academics and citizens to a productive and inspiring CS experience through creativity and new methodologies, endowed with essential skills (for example, interdisciplinary, scientific thinking, digital competence and entrepreneurial skills) that allow them to thrive in projects. of CS and remain resilient to modern societies.
In particular, the University of Barcelona offers a certified training course in citizen science that attracts more than 140 participants from the Barcelona area. The activity aims to highlight the importance of citizen science practices in the local community of Barcelona and in collaboration with the Taula del Tercer Social de Catalunya. The UB uses the activity to share ideas generated from the Citizen Science NOW project and makes use of the resources developed by the project. Furthermore, the training serves to emphasize the social commitment that underpins the concept of citizen science and offers debates and resources that participants can use for their own initiatives. The activity fosters an environment of self-critical dialogue interchanging experiences, cases of success and challenge that various citizen science projects are facing.
The training course of the University of Barcelona serves to enhance and increase the recognition of the community of citizen science professionals of the University of Barcelona and the digital resources products are available on an official website of the UB.
Key deliverables
Nicolas, E., van Dam, K., Tercanli, H., Trần, M. A., de Vries, S., Vonk, J., Perelló, J., Lemus, M., & Bedoya Bernal, N. (2022). Needs assessment and future foresight report on Citizen Science. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7509521
UB training digital resources: https://ub.edu/ciencia-ciutadana
Credits
This project has received funding from the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union under grant agreement 2021-1-DE02-KA220-ADU-000035352. 
Partners
Citizen Science NOW consortium consists of three Higher Education Institutions and two Small and Medium enterprises:
Science-to-Business Marketing Research Center (S2B), Münster University of Applied Sciences, Germany (coordinator)
University of Twente, The Netherlands
University of Barcelona, Spain
Bespoke Copenhagen, Denmark
Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities (ACEEU), Germany
