Are you a member of a citizen science initiative that focuses on the adaptation of climate change?
You can join the ScienceUs project
Citizen science is a model in which society, represented by different actors, normally outside the process of scientific development, become actors on an equal footing.
ScienceUs will promote citizen science initiatives in which citizen science involves the active participation of different stakeholders in the integral development of the research model because:
1) There is deep knowledge, often geographic, environmental or cultural, in areas that are very difficult to access from the academia,
2) There is a potential for human collaboration capable of carrying out tasks for the development of the scientific model,
3) There is a real and potential desire to participate in the scientific model on the part of very diverse actors who have seen their access to scientific knowledge limited because they are outside the traditional circuits;
4) There is orientable scientific knowledge outside the academy that we must constructively integrate.
Adaptation to climate change
Adaptation to climate change involves adjusting to current or future changes. The aim is to reduce risks of the adverse effects of climate change such as sea level rise, extreme weather events or food insecurity. “Adaptation to climate change” can have an impact on various global challenges and HE EU missions:
1) Restoration of our oceans and waters. Climate change is causing significant changes in our oceans and waterways, including rising temperatures, acidification, sea level rise, and changes in precipitation patterns.
2) Agri-food soil management is critical to adapting to climate change because healthy soil is essential for sustainable food production.
3) Smart cities, which use technology to improve the quality of life of their residents, are well-placed to adapt to climate change. On the other hand, the best practices on smart cities have a clear and positive impact on adaptation to climate change
4) Finally, climate change adaptation may have positive impacts on cancer prevention. The reduction of exposure to environmental factors that are linked to cancer (e.g., air and water pollution) can have a positive impact on the prevention of cancer diseases.
Next phases
In the first phase of the ScienceUs, a benchmarking of a relevant group of citizen science initiatives will be carried out to identify those metrics and variables related to good citizen science practices that also facilitate replicability and upscaling. In addition, the participants of the most relevant initiatives benchmarked in this phase will be interviewed in order to produce stories and testimonials that can be spread throughout Europe and serve as use cases to be replicated by other initiatives. Also, out of the 5 EU Missions, ScienceUs will mainly address the “Adaptation to Climate Change” and assess the challenges that projects under this topic face in generating higher European impacts.
These challenges will be the basis for the call to be launched in the upcoming months. In the next phase, the consortium will support a group of citizen science initiatives to scale up and network with others under the same theme in different European regions. In particular, ScienceUs will focus on facilitating EU-wide citizen involvement in these initiatives since they should help identify research priorities in the target EU Mission, participate in research studies, work with researchers to scale up the supported citizen science projects, disseminate projects’ findings to their communities and advocate for additional funding.
“Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”