More than a hundred scientists and experts from Europe, USA and Australia met from 28th to 30th October in Barcelona to celebrate the third edition of the General Assembly of the European Association of Citizen Science (ECSA), and to discuss the most important challenges of this field for the coming years. The meeting was organized by the same ECSA, the OpenSystems research group at the Universitat de Barcelona, the Barcelona Lab of the Citizen Science Office of the Barcelona City Council and the ICM.
More than a hundred scientists and experts from Europe, USA and Australia met from 28th to 30th October in Barcelona to celebrate the third edition of the General Assembly of the European Association of Citizen Science (ECSA), and to discuss the most important challenges of this field for the coming years. The meeting was organized by the same ECSA, the OpenSystems research group at the Universitat de Barcelona, the Barcelona Lab of the Citizen Science Office of the Barcelona City Council and the ICM. The event also had the collaboration of the Museu del Disseny, the Museu Blau and the same ICM, whose facilities were the venues of the meeting.
The Citizen Science is a rising practice that involves citizens to participate in research activities. They actively contribute to research whether with intellectual effort, knowledge, tools or resources. The participants generate relevant data for a given research with their own devices and observations. They also raise new questions to scientists and collectively create a new scientific culture.
Barcelona Citizen Science Safari
During the 28th, the ICM presented two projects to the international community in the framework of the "Barcelona Citizen Science Safari" in which, scientists gave practical demonstrations of 10 local projects to the participants in two different open air locations of Barcelona. The projects presented by the ICM were Citclops and Seawatchers.
Citclops is a European project to monitor the quality of seawater through their optical properties that relies on the support of citizen observatories. This platform, formed by different experts, is developing low-cost sensors to collect information about the color, fluorescence and transparency of seas and oceans. Seawatchers,coordinated by scientists of the ICM, looks for the cooperation of citizens to collect data to detect changes in the sea, such as those related to rising temperature, invasion or proliferation of certain species, or pollution. Since 2012, this project is also included in the Office of Citizen Science (Oficina de Ciència Ciutadana) of the city.
Workshop on Citizen Science Data and Service Infrastructure
On Friday 30th, the ICM hosted a conference to discuss the future technological challenges of citizen science at a global scale. This conference was organized by Jaume Piera, researcher at the ICM representing the ECSA, and Arne Berre, from the SINTEF technology center in Norway, and Sven Schade, from the Join Research Center of the European Commission, as ENVIP coordinators.
The workshop brought together scientific experts in data processing and management of various nationalities. It was an opportunity to discuss issues such as the interoperability of information, intellectual property, security and privacy, or new models of social networks. Its main objective was to define strategies and procedures to develop these aspects with the participation and collaboration of worldwide organizations.
ECSA, European Citizen Science Association
ECSA represents a network of citizen science projects, research institutes, universities, museums and other organizations and individuals from 20 countries of the European Union, Switzerland and the United States. Its members work together with the mission to connect citizens and promote science through their active participation. ECSA is an NGO registered in Germany and managed by a silk in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research.
Program: http://ecsa.citizen-science.net/ECSA_General_Assembly_2015