About the project
ScienceUs is a three year European project funded by the European Commision under the call HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ERA-01-08. The call has specific directions, scopes and objectives.
Citizen science, involving citizens directly in the development of new knowledge or innovations, is a rapidly emerging mode of research and innovation that can lead to increased quality and effectiveness, e.g., through collecting, processing or analysing new qualities and quantities of data.
Many citizen science initiatives could achieve much higher impact if they were implemented on a transnational basis, collecting, analysing and exploiting vast amounts of cross-country data and, thereby, building a multinational community of citizen scientists.
However, small-scale national citizen science projects often face practical, technical, or conceptual challenges and lack the support, the transnational coordination skills, and the resources, to upscale their efforts to a transnational level.
ScienceUs Mission
The main mission of ScienceUs is to create an EU-wide network of interconnected citizen science projects. A combined support program of direct funding and support services will be provided to a group of high-potential citizen science initiatives. A strong set of communication, dissemination, and knowledge transfer activities will be implemented to engage all actors in the quadruple helix around the citizen science networks.
ScienceUs Objectives
- To create and attract a EU community of citizen science initiatives to be upscaled to other EU regions.
The ScienceUs team is formed by the CIVIS university alliance and MFN that brings its expertise and networks generated thanks to its leading role in EU-citizen.science3 and it’s successor, European Citizen Science. ScienceUs will build on the relevant links that the consortium already has with different European platforms, projects and initiatives considered “champions” of citizen science to benchmark best practices. Different metrics, such as participation and engagement, data quality, impact, etc. will be analyzed in the citizen science benchmarking.
The creation of a stakeholder advisory board representing the quadruple helix actors will support the benchmarking activities and the ScienceUs Upscale support program. In addition, ScienceUs will identify the main challenges and opportunities related to “Adaptation to Climate Change” under the new ERA framework, Horizon EU and Missions (KSTs= Key Strategic Topics) to be exploited through citizen science best practices. All these activities will be key to the launch of the call for promising citizen science initiatives and to the design of a set of tools and support services to upscale the selected initiatives to other EU regions.
- To select and engage 5 local but promising citizen science initiatives in a dynamic and challenging support program comprising of 3 phases: SEED- FLOURISH- HARVEST.
ScienceUs will implement a 3- phase support program with direct funding (max. € 40.000 supported project) and support services to a group of outstanding citizen science initiatives that have the potential to be upscaled to other EU regions. The main objective of the support program is the creation of European citizen science networks in different research and technological areas related to “Adaptation to Climate Change”. ScienceUs will assist the citizen science projects by:
1) Defining a transnational citizen science campaign plan (Seed),
2) Implementing the transnational campaign plan by facilitating the matchmaking between EU citizen science initiatives and the involvement of quadruple helix actors in the projects (Flourish), and
3) Facilitating that these supported citizen science projects transfer the best practices and lessons learnt to other initiatives and projects and to quadruple helix actors (mainly policy makers) generating a knowledge spillover effect (Harvest).
- To deliver a strong combination of support tools for scaling up and demonstrating at a large scale the impact EU-wide citizen science projects can have in achieving the New Era and EU mission goals.
The ScienceUs upscale academy will deliver individualized and group support services to the selected citizen science sub-projects. The services will be designed based on the benchmarking results and the KSTs of WP2, however, these will be adapted to the needs of each sub-project.
The services may be of the following types:
1) A repository of citizen science training materials with protocols and working modalities available on the website and open to all stakeholders;
2) Training (webinars and face-to-face) on different topics and working modalities on citizen science;
3) Networking and matchmaking services with all relevant actors from the quadruple helix;
4) Mentoring and coaching services.
5) Access to additional public and private funding.
6) Specific consultancy services related to gender balance and inclusive engagement of vulnerable groups.
7) To set the basis for a long-lasting, sustainable and efficient exploitation plan.
ScienceUs will monitor the level of satisfaction of the players engaged in the support of citizen science sub-projects (ScienceUs partners, stakeholders and the participants of the sub-projects). Results and impacts on policies generated by each sub-project will also be assessed to transfer the knowledge and conclusions to public authorities, policymakers, academia, and industry (WP4).
In WP5, partners will agree on the exploitation plan to be implemented after the project ends. One key objective is to assess the potential to transfer ScienceUs methodology to other different thematic areas under the new ERA and Horizon Europe missions. The communication strategy will also include activities to enlarge the strategic stakeholders to be engaged in the SAB and to build institutional endorsement (WP5). WP5 will also establish links with other similar initiatives, projects and platforms to find synergies and cooperate.
WORK PACKAGES
Work Package 1 – Project management
WP1 aims to coordinate, monitor, and structure the project development, ensuring its dynamic and efficient governance.
Work Package 2 – Benchmarking of citizen science initiatives related to the approach of the Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change
The main objectives of this WP are:
- To perform a benchmark in citizen science practices based on the identification of areas for improvement and best practices to increase the effectiveness and impact of citizen science.
- To assess the interest of different research projects related to EU missions to use EU-wide citizen science campaigns to achieve their objectives and maximize their impact.
- To identify relevant and representative examples, a meaningful number of them, citizen science campaigns in the context of research projects.
- To obtain evidence and data to illustrate to the different actors of the quadruple helix the interest of a change of mindset through a citizen science approach in the new ERA.
Work Package 3 – Selection and support to the 5 most promising projects to be scaled up in the field of citizen science
The main objective of this WP is to select and provide support to a group of outstanding citizen science initiatives to be scaled up transnationally. This will be achieved by launching an open call for outstanding citizen science initiatives to solve the KSTs identified in WP2 The highest-potential citizen science initiatives will enter into a 3- steps support programme (Seed > Flourish > Harvest).
In detail, the objectives of this WP will be to:
- Define the framework and implement a transparent process to ensure a smooth execution of an open call and a new support programme.
- To engage quadruple helix stakeholders in the support programme.
- Enable the CS projects’ engagement in the programme by offering sufficient funding.
- To co-design and provide support services to 25 CS sub-projects (Seed phase) + 5 CS sub-projects (Flourishing and Harvesting Phases).
- To set up and execute a milestone system for KPI checking & funding distribution for the CS sub-projects.
Work Package 4 – Impact Analysis and policy recommendations
- Assess ScienceUs’ contribution to enhancing the capacity of new ERA research projects to implement citizen science practices.
- Analyse the impact of the projects supported following the transnational citizen science campaigns implemented.
- Transfer knowledge and lessons learned to policymakers to develop policies and regulations to promote citizen science initiatives.
Work Package 5 – Communication, dissemination, sustainability and exploitation
Work Package 5 will be dedicated to raising awareness and visibility of the ScienceUs project. Thus, with a proper dissemination and communication strategy the WP will:
- Clearly explain that ScienceUs welcomes citizen science initiatives with interest to upscale to other regions in Europe.
- Establish a multi-directional communication path between the stakeholders and other relevant initiatives across sectors and regions to promote success stories;
- Finally, this WP will evaluate and explore sustainable development paths.
Partners
The ScienceUs team is formed by universities from the CIVIS Alliance and the Museum für Naturkunde that brings its expertise and networks generated thanks to its leading role in EU-citizen science and its successor, European Citizen Science.
ScienceUs is led by the Universidad Autonoma De Madrid (Spain). Together with other 6 universities from the CIVIS, (Aix Marseille Université(France), Ethniko Kai Kapodistriako Panepistimio Athinon (Greece), Universitatea Din Bucuresti (Romania), Universite Libre De Bruxelles (Belgium), Universita Degli Studi Di Roma La Sapienza (Italy), and Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen (Germany)) and the Museum Für Naturkunde (Germany) have joined to work together on the ScienceUs project, offering diverse experiences and know-how, and representing a broad, balanced, and targeted geographical area.
