Champions
Citizen Science Champions
A compilation of stories exploring the human experience and behind the scenes of citizen science projects that have made a difference in Europe, through the stories of the communities that are breaking the barrier between science and society.
For each European mission, we have set out to find the most groundbreaking stories told by the Champions of citizen science - volunteers, policy-makers, scientists, athletes and others who have elevated public participation in science across Europe. Discover how anyone can be a champion of scientific research.
-
-
Special Episode - Hands on learning in the classroom: the use of citizen science in innovative EU schools
Interviewing Anita Šimac, Quique Vergara, Achillefs Kapartzianis and Elena Papadopoulou, our citizen science champion teachers for a special episode discovering the benefits of citizen science for education.
Read more Achillefs Kapartzianis, Elena Papadopoulou, Anita Šhimats and Quique Vergara (clockwise)
Nationality: Cyprus, Greece, Croatia and Spain
Main occupation: Teachers
What does it take to go from being a young student to becoming an informed and active citizen? According to Scientix, the European community of reference for STEM education professionals, citizen science is the answer. Let’s explore this answer with four Scientix ambassadors who are currently teachers grappling with the daily challenges of the learning process.
Whether it is the work of Elena Papadopoulou in Greece, Achillefs Kapartzianis in Cyprus, Quique Vergara in Spain, or Anita Šhimats in Croatia, the vision of the ideal STEM school is shared: an inclusive and safe space in which a holistic, innovative and collaborative approach to education is implemented through active and engaging learning.
According to their decades of experience, the development of critical thinking on environmental issues and empowerment of the students are among the main positive effects of integrating innovative citizen science approaches with traditional teaching methods, helping students acquire a set of tools that can also be used outside of the classroom. Students see firsthand that what they do can make a difference, they gain confidence, and their teachers hope that this will support them in becoming confident change-makers in their society.Close January, 2025
-
-
Episode 11 - Vaginal swabs to revolutionise women's health research: how citizen science helps to investigate the female microbiome
Interviewing Leonore Vander Donck, our citizen science champion inside the EU Mission ‘’Cancer: improving the lives of more than 3 million people’’.
Read more Leonore Vander Donck
Nationality: Belgium
Main occupation: Microbiome Researcher
Lenore Vander Donck is a Ph.D. student at the University of Antwerp who, in the last 4 years, contributed to developing ISALA. ISALA is an innovative research project that uses citizen science to study the vaginal microbiome to increase knowledge and improve prevention.
Indeed, Lenore and her team realized that until now very little scientific research had been conducted on this sensitive topic, often confining case studies to gynecological settings where only disease-carrying vaginas were found. Wanting to learn more about the biodiversity of microorganisms that distinguish healthy vaginas, they therefore began seeking volunteers.
By asking applicants to answer a simple online questionnaire on their website, and then sending them a free toolkit and a brochure, thousands of women could contribute to the big picture.
The project has raised volunteers' awareness of the topic, improving their ability to be somewhat independent of gynecologists in assessing overall vaginal health. At the same time, the project collected a quantity of samples leading to premium data, paving the way for new research in an under-investigated topic.
The link between the vaginal microbiome and related risks such as cancer, miscarriage, abortion, or particular types of pain is now being explored like never before, allowing women to finally take charge of their health and the women's scientific community to get the space it has always deserved. Big thanks to Lenore and her team!Close September 26th, 2024
-
-
Episode 10 - How soil samples from local communities can be the next big thing for biotechnology
Interviewing Nadine Greenhalgh, our citizen science champion for the EU mission "A Soil deal for Europe”.
READ MORE Nadine Greenhalgh
Nationality: England
Main occupation: Biodiversity Partnerships Manager Working for a company, Basecamp Research, that, in the hunt for ‘better medicines, better food and better products for the planet’ deals with analysing and enhancing commercially the dense, heterogeneous, yet mostly unknown biome contained in soil, Nadine Greenhalgh can proudly affirm that her current role as ‘Biodiversity Project Manager’ is contributing greatly to expanding the network of stakeholders involved in this useful and much-needed ‘race’.
Involved in the project since the company's inception, Nadine has helped establish research partnerships with 20 countries over the past three years, gaining access to unique soil samples from locations and citizens all over the world, and thus changing the traditional exclusive approach of biotechnology companies to the market and society.
In this way, they are helping to accelerate the discovery of new proteins and enzymes contained in this soil biome, substances that are useful for a wide variety of applications, such as the one implemented by the partner 'Protein Evolution' for the degradation of ubiquitous plastic waste.
These beneficial collaborations with all levels of society, together with other practical acts such as the construction of regional DNA sequencing laboratories, are building concrete and replicable value chains, which are also fair and equitable for the sender of the samples, who can count on royalties for any patents, as well as up-to-date information on the development of the product in question. Great work team!Close September 12th, 2024
-
-
Episode 9 - Bioblitz events to monitor biodiversity in the face of climate change
Interviewing Quentin Groom and Sofie Meeus our citizen science champions for the EU Mission “Adaptations to climate change”.
READ MORE Quentin Groom and Sofie Meeus
Nationality: Belgium
Main occupation: Biodiversity Researchers
To get a grasp on the relationship currently ongoing between biodiversity and citizen science, please ask Sofie Meeus and Quentin Groom, two research scientists working at the Botanic Garden of Meise, in Belgium, with a passion for both plants and data informatics.
Their investigations into the participatory event known as 'bioblitz' (i.e. the involvement of citizens for a certain period in the collection of photos that testify to the presence of as many organisms as possible at a given time in a given area) are producing many interesting results for the scientific community, helping to definitively dispel its skepticism towards this innovative data collection methodology and highlighting its strengths and many applications.
The gamification involved in this approach to biodiversity is what makes bioblitzes so effective among citizens, who are often eager to proudly participate in making their favourite area known for its nature values. On the other hand, these experiences help connect a wider section of society with nature, making them witness to potential or actual changes in the ecosystem in which they live.
From previous national projects like ‘Groene Pioneers’ (Green Pioneers) to current international ones like TETTRIs (Transforming European Taxonomy through Training, Research and Innovations), there are many ramifications of Sophie and Quentin's work involving citizen science, and we would like to thank them for this. Keep up the good work!Close August 29th, 2024
-
-
Episode 8: Surfing for water quality monitoring - a surfer point of view on citizen science
Interviewing Elena Vignerte, our citizen science champion for the EU mission "Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030".
READ MORE Elena Vignerte
Nationality: France
Main occupation: surfer
Elena Vignerte is a passionate surfer from western France who in 2019 put her lengthy experience in volunteering, fundraising, and sustainable finance at the service of Surfrider Foundation Europe, an NGO fighting for the protection of rivers, lakes, and oceans by involving so far more than 2000 volunteers in 50 local branches distributed in 12 countries.
Clean-ups with quantification and categorisation of found waste, and scientific laboratories investigating the many yet little-considered artificial compounds that influence the chemistry of fresh and saltwater are the bread and butter of the company's initiatives, and the protagonists of these actions can be families who want a relaxing but meaningful Sunday outing, as much as adrenalin-addicted surfers who want to give back to their favourite playground simply wearing a sensor attached to their ankle and collecting pollution data while having fun.
For Elena, the community and purpose sense that this type of citizen science helps to build makes her and her team so dedicated to improving water literacy, and we can witness this by looking at the annual environmental reports they share and have shared with policymakers directly connected to national and European institutions.
Would you like to join in? Choose from the many possibilities offered by the official Surfrider website, or contact them to organise your own personal ‘Ocean Initiative’. Go for it!Close August 1st, 2024
-
-
Episode 7: Citizens' role for a planet "on the move" - detection and eradication of invasive plant species in Portugal
Interviewing Elizabeta and Helia Marchante, our citizen science champions for the EU Mission “Adaptations to climate change”.
READ MORE Elizabeth and Helia Marchante
Nationality: Portugal
Main occupation: Botanists
Two scientists, two twins, one purpose: to engage people in monitoring alien and invasive plant species in Portugal, to complement their research on this pressing issue. This is a short description of one of the many occupations of the Marchante sisters, Elizabeta and Helia, a peculiar couple whose lives are intertwined by the love for life both below and above ground.
Despite coming from different research fields, once realised that their work could be complementary, the two began dabbling in a scientific adventure that led them, in 2013, to build ‘Invasoras.pt’, Portugal's first citizen science project addressing specifically the many problems related to invasive plants, in which people are asked to collect and share the location of certain species. The project, now merged into iNaturalist, has since evolved through dedicated workshops, talks, field trips, species removal, bio-blitzes, and an engaging social media activity which together have helped to popularise nationwide a topic otherwise unknown to most.
Fighting the so-called ‘plant blindness’, the phenomenon by which people tend to ignore diversity and changes in flora despite its ubiquitous presence in everyday life, Elizabeta and Helia are doing their part in stopping a phenomenon, the spread of invasive species in general, responsible for 60% of total extinctions and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual damage to the economy. Thanks a lot! Now you'll surely get more helpers.Close July 25th, 2024
-
-
Episode 6: Building smart cities of the future with citizen science - the case of Leuven, Belgium
Interviewing Thomas Van Oppens and Tim Guily our citizen science champions for the EU mission “100 climate-friendly and smart cities”.
READ MORE Tim Guily and Thomas Van Oppens
Nationality: Belgium
Main occupation: urban policy makers
Thomas and Tim are, respectively, ‘Deputy Mayor for Digitalization’ and ‘Advisor for the Smart City’ in Leuven, Belgium, where Kris Vanherle, the protagonist of the 2nd episode, first implemented its project ‘Telraam’. Alongside, Thomas and Tim bring us the crucial yet rarely explored point of view of the policymaking behind citizen science.
From the measurement of urban noise with hundreds of microphones to the acquisition of air quality data with specially designed sensors, Leuven has been involved in citizen science since 2017, long before Telraam's traffic monitoring technology was born, demonstrating how much of the city's DNA is focused on innovation. In this desirable context, our two champions operate with a clear understanding of how citizen science can move from ambitious words to concrete action: openness toward researchers' proposals, clear ideas from the outset on the use of data, constant information from citizens, and responsibilities towards this knowledge transfer. These are the main ingredients for lasting citizen science.
With this recipe, they have turned Leuven into a living laboratory, where better traffic plans, reduced urban noise, and improved air quality have become a reality.
What will happen next? For example, arresting the effects of heat islands with better management of green areas is under study. So, let's watch out for Leuven and thank you for showing us the way!Close July 18th, 2024
-
-
Episode 5: Nosing around in gardens - citizen science to monitor soil in urban environments
Interviewing Jonas Lembrechts, our citizen science champion for the EU mission "A Soil Deal for Europe".
READ MORE Jonas Lembrechts
Nationality: Dutch
Main occupation: Plant Ecology
Jonas Lembrechts is a plant ecologist and assistant professor at the University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, where he is currently working on innovative ways of scaling science to obtain some much-needed data, such as those related to hot topics like climate change, extreme weather events, soil health and, most importantly, how humans behaviour influence them.
It is relying on his creative mind that Jonas came up with the idea of engaging hundreds of citizens in a never-before-seen challenge: monitoring the rapidly changing climate at the backyard level, to understand the influence of certain actions on the general local weather picture.
In 2021 and 2022, he succeeded in realising 'CurieuzeNeuzen' (roughly translatable as 'curious noses'), a large-scale citizen science project that involved 5,000 Flanders citizens in collecting soil samples in their backyard and maintaining a mini weather station there for six months.
The results and feedback received over the two years have been outstanding, so much so that once the huge amount of data has been processed, it is guaranteed that its actions will serve as a model for scientists willing to engage citizens in building a more resilient future. Way to go, Jonas!Close July 11th, 2024
-
-
Episode 4: Sailing at 38kts while collecting essential ocean data - citizen science in and for professional offshore racing
Interviewing Cornelius Eich, our citizen science champion for the EU mission "Restore our Ocean and Waters”.
READ MORE Cornelius Eich
Nationality: German
Main occupation: marine journalism
Cornelius Eich is a man of many talents, and each of these is now working together towards a shared objective: to enhance and advance Ocean culture through the contribution of passionate stakeholders.
His 7 years of experience within the European Union's business offices (see for example his current role as a board member of the German ‘UN Decade of Oceans Committee’), as well as his position within the German sailing team ‘Malizia’ (as Head of Partnership and Sustainability), make him the ideal ambassador of citizen science among the sailing community by promoting the benefits for both the sport/business experience and society as a whole.
Gathering more and more crucial oceanographic data such as water temperature, salinity, and density, as well as shifts in stream directions or microplastic abundance, Cornelius is helping the scientific community in obtaining that much-needed data coming from extreme and so hard-to-reach locations such as those cruised by boats competing in the open waters, or those simply skipping from one harbour to the other.
To inspire, fascinate and excite the next generations of sailors with a deeper connection to their favourite environment is an ambitious yet reachable dream that Team Malizia advocates not only in competitive environments but also inside educational initiatives or daily public relations with partners that want to be of help. Let’s help Cornelius and his team give the Ocean a voice!Close July 4th, 2024
-
-
Episode 3: Gardens as mini-laboratories for climate change - the use of citizen science to monitor agriculture
Interviewing Frederik Gerits, our citizen science champion for the EU mission "Adaptations to climate change”.
READ MORE Frederik Gerits
Nationality: Belgium
Main occupation: Entrepreneur
“Scientists can often learn more from citizens than the other way around if they do take time to listen”. Is by quoting his own wise words that we introduce to you Fredrik Gerits, a young bioscience researcher from Ghent University (Flanders) who specialised in forestry systems, and is particularly interested in the interactions between nature and agriculture at the landscape level. His work is focused on the ways agriculture can withstand the ever-changing climate and how to give interested stakeholders the suitable knowledge and tools to adapt and keep producing.
To achieve his ambitious research goals, since 2018 Fredrik has been implementing an active project on agroforestry systems based on a citizen science approach: by creating and replicating in dozens of different locations 1 m2-gardens with predetermined crops, he is studying the interactions between those selected vegetables and external factors such as biodiversity, microclimate, extreme weather events, landscape pattern, farmer care and so on.
His work so far has granted many important scientific outputs on agriculture adaptations to climate change, but the more interesting ones are probably those coming from the social component: he understood how crucial the experience and point of view of farmers and gardeners can be to scientists, and how the same perspectives of the first can change if involved immersively in research: take note!Close June 27th, 2024
-
-
Episode 2: Your window on local traffic - making a business out of citizen science for smart cities
Interviewing Kris Vanherle, our citizen science champion for the EU mission “100 climate-friendly and smart cities”.
READ MORE Kris Vanherle
Nationality: Belgium
Main occupation: Entrepreneur
Kris Vanherle is a Belgian traffic engineer and now an entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to studying and analysing traffic data to improve the liveability of cities. After training at the University of Leuven, and then gaining practical experience in a local enterprise related to urban mobility, Kris came up with the idea of implementing one of his greatest passions, citizen science, into entrepreneurship.
That's how his co-founded project, Telraam, was born in 2019: the idea was to involve citizens in counting the quantity and quality of traffic in a given city, and thanks to small, ready-to-use sensors that were easy to use and understand, simply by attaching them to windows facing the street.
Understanding that the priorities of city administrators can often be condensed into very few factors, such as urban safety, waste disposal and traffic management, Kris managed to make citizen science a winning key to his entrepreneurial venture: purchase after purchase, in 2023 he was able to improve the sensor to its current upgrade, and its use has since spread from Belgium to Europe to the world, improving the life quality of many cities.
Now an example of an enduring and successful citizen science project exists, and is here to be discovered, studied and considered as a model for those smart cities grappling with climate change innovatively: many thanks, Kris!Close June 20th, 2024
-
-
Episode 1: From protecting sharks to denouncing marine litter - how citizen science impacts policy
Interviewing Eleonora De Sabata, our citizen science champion for the EU mission "Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030".
Read more Eleonora De Sabata
Nationality: Italy
Eleonora de Sabata is an Italian journalist and photographer who has dedicated herself to the enhancement and conservation of the Mediterranean Sea for decades. Her constant commitment to highlighting the importance and multiple values of a better-managed marine ecosystem has led her to make great contributions to science and society, outputs that everyone can enjoy today.
‘Osservatorio Mediterraneo’, MEDSharks, the European LIFE projects ‘Clean Sea’ (completed) and ‘European Sharks’ (just started), MEDFever, Shark Alliance and so on… her devotion to biodiversity and people caring for it stands as a concrete and lively example of citizen science potential to influence the lives of many.
Like when she discovered that the source of pollution on some beaches was a leak in a factory, which in turn had to face a trial for marine littering, the first of its kind; or the time she contributed to the discovery of two new species of molluscs; or when she helped identify important feeding sites for sharks.
A person who implemented citizen science long before the term was officially coined, a marine journalist with clear conservation goals, a photographer and expert scuba diver with a passion for underwater ecosystems, and much more. We thank Eleonora for the inspiring time she dedicated to sea and society, certain that her example will now shine even brighter.Close June 13th, 2024
-
-
Intro: People-friendly science
Join us, and discover how everyone can be a champion of scientific research
April 10th, 2024
- Hits: 5809
