Citizen Science projects
Liderat per Josep Espluga
Educational institutions can play a significant role in the fight against climate change. The EU-funded ECF4CLIM project will develop, test and validate a European Competence Framework (ECF) for transformational change to empower the educational community to act. The project will apply an innovative hybrid approach based on participatory action research and citizen science to co-design an ECF that is adaptable to a range of settings and integrates digital and social competences related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. ECF4CLIM explores individual, organisational and institutional factors. To encourage learning-by-doing, several innovative tools will be co-designed with and made available to citizens, including a digital platform for crowdsourcing, IoT solutions and a digital learning space.
Through a multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary and participatory process, ECF4CLIM develops, tests and validates a European Competence Framework (ECF) for transformational change, which will empower the educational community to take action against climate change and towards sustainable development.
Applying a novel hybrid participatory approach, rooted in participatory action research and citizen science, ECF4CLIM co-designs the ECF in selected schools and universities, by: 1) elaborating an initial ECF, supported by crowdsourcing of ideas and analysis of existing ECFs; 2) establishing the baseline of individual and collective competences, as well as environmental performance indicators; 3) implementing practical, replicable and context-adapted technical, behavioural, and organisational interventions that foster the acquisition of competences; 4) evaluating the ability of the interventions to strengthen sustainability competences and environmental performance; and 5) validating the ECF.
The proposed ECF is unique in that it encompasses the interacting STEM-related, digital and social competences, and systematically explores individual, organisational and institutional factors that enable or constrain the desired change. The novel hybrid participatory approach provides the broad educational community with: an ECF adaptable to a range of settings; new ways of collaboration between public, private and third-sector bodies; and innovative organisational models of engagement and action for sustainability (Sustainability Competence Teams and Committees).
To encourage learning-by-doing, several novel tools will be co-designed with and made available to citizens, including a digital platform for crowdsourcing, IoT solutions for real-time monitoring of selected parameters, and a digital learning space. Participation of various SMEs in the consortium maximises the broad adoption and applicability of the ECF for the required transformational change towards sustainability.
Project information
Start datei: October 1, 2021
Data de finalització: September 30, 2025
Finançament: H2020 (IA)
More information:
Lead by Jordi Honey-Roses
BiciZen is a platform for urban cyclists to share their cycling experiences.
We aim to learn about urban mobility, public engagement and cycling through a citizen science platform.
The knowledge collected by the platform will empower urban cyclists with key information regarding their surroundings, help cities manage and improve their cycling infrastructure to foster their transition to a low-carbon mobility future, and contribute to the growing literature on urban cycling issues and solutions.
BiciZen engages people of all ages who cycle in urban areas and want to make cycling safer and easier for the non-professional users.
By using the specialized BiciZen app, participants can share their cycling experiences and learn from other cyclists. For example, they can report an obstruction on a cycle path, propose a new location for a bicycle parking or share a nice park to ride with kids. This will only take a few minutes and can be done as often as you choose.
The app is interactive and provides explanations, illustrations and even a short manual. You can also check the resources available on our website, assist some of the events that we organize, or check our cycling data portal for cycling related data.
Your participation will allow you to get to know your city and surroundings, collaborate with other cyclists, gain the confidence to propose improvements in the public infrastructure and to collect data for your own research or uses.
All BiciZen data plus other cycling related data is available on our CKan data portal, or you can also download the full dataset from the BiciZen website.
We would like to acknowledge your contribution to advancing our understanding of urban cycling. Read more about how we do this on our website.
Lead by Victoria Reyes-García
OpenTEK is a worldwide web-based platform in which any citizen can add observations of climate change impacts. The project aims to make visible the impacts suffered by local populations, show the diversity of climate change impacts that lay people can identify, including Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC), and help decision makers in the development of adaptation policies which target the impacts suffered by the population the the territories they inhabit. OpenTEK can be an important tool for scientists aiming to collaborate with IPLC in the co-production of knowledge on climate change, for different IPLC facing the same problems, and for policymakers who aim for policies targeting place-specific climate change impacts affecting local communities. General public, including scientists and Indigenous People and local communities are welcomed to get involved. Any citizen with deeper connection with nature can report, through our citizen science platform, climate change impacts perceived in their territory. Participants can complement the observation with pictures, the location, and a brief description. Participants will find user guidelines explaining how to contribute to the platform. Participants can use the platform also with their smartphones. Participants will contribute to improve scientific knowledge on climate change impacts. Users will get the opportunity to make visible the problems they are suffering at local level in their community and find people in other regions with the same problems to look for a common adaptation measure. OpenTEK is free and an open source platform. Participants can explore geographical distribution of indicators of climate change impacts reported on article reviews, local observations of users or fieldwork studies. Only public entries are available for download and people downloading an entry should follow the license requirements specific of that entry form. Platform users can specify the license of the entry and decide if they want to display information publicly or keep it private. Climate change impacts are affecting all of us, so get involved (https://opentek.eu/licci) and share your knowledge with the community! Every bit of information counts!
Project information
Start date: 30th May, 2019
Funding: EOVALUE JRC-H2020; LICCI ERC Consolidator Grant
More information:
Results
ERC Magazine article: Bringing Indigenous and local knowledge to climate change research
Results:
Lead by Xavier Gabarrell i Durany
The development of resilient and sustainable food systems within urban centres and rural areas surrounding cities is vital to foster food security and nutrition, as well as economic development and sustainable natural resources management. Citizen-led city region food systems (CRFS) can prove useful. The EU-funded FoodE project aims to accelerate the growth of CRFS by bringing together local initiatives across Europe and co-developing and disseminating new tools to promote and bolster citizen-driven food systems. The project will encourage local communities to work in line with the EU sustainable development goals. It will define the operational methodology for the assessment of CRFS and promote cooperation between European CRFS.
Diversity of European cities and regions creates barriers to the demonstration of systemic food-related innovative approaches valuable in so different contexts. Objective of FoodE is to accelerate the growth of citizen-led City/Region food systems (CRFS) by bringing local initiatives across Europe together, as well as co-developing and disseminating a range of tools - co-designed with academia, citizens, and food system start-ups - to ensure that the most up-to-date cross-sectorial knowledge is applied. Start-ups will also provide an in-depth understanding of the needs of the key stakeholders, making resilient citizen-driven food systems happen. The key challenge is then to aggregate the most sustainable models of CRFS and enable co-creation of innovative pilot experiences, fostering the health and wellbeing of European citizens. This challenge will be tackled by setting a co-created mechanism, based on Citizen Science and Responsible Research and Innovation principles, where public authorities, citizens, business actors and non-profit organisations share ideas, tools, best practices and new models, supporting cities in becoming innovative food hubs.
The outputs of FoodE will impact on job creation, promotion of local economy, strengthening the role of local communities in complying with Sustainable Development Goals, as well as identifying and strengthening relations between the different actors of the food chain. The way used by FoodE to achieve this goals consists of the following steps:
- Define an operational methodology for the assessment of CRFS.
- Promote cross-pollination between European CRFS.
- Contribute to increase access to affordable, safe and nutritious food.
- Create a tool mobilising CRFS stakeholders in sustainability assessment.
- Upscale the output to other EU cities.
Project information
Start date: 1 February, 2020
End date: 31 January, 2024
Funding: H2020 (IA)
More information:
Results
Publications by UAB staff:
Stringari, Gaia; Villanueva, Joan; Rosell Melé, Antoni; [et al.]. «Assessment of greenhouse emissions of the green bean through the static enclosure technique». Science of the total environment, Vol. 874 (May 2023), art. 162319. DOI 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162319 <https://ddd.uab.cat/record/273153>
Tonini, Pietro; Muñoz Odina, Pere; Orsini, Francesco; [et al.]. «Economic benefit and social impact derived by a food loss prevention strategy in the vegetable sector : A spatial and temporal analysis at the regional level». Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, Vol. 6 (December 2022), art. 1043591. DOI 10.3389/fsufs.2022.1043591 <https://ddd.uab.cat/record/273124>
Peña, Alexandra; Rovira Val, Ma. Rosa; Mendoza, Joan Manuel F. «Life cycle cost analysis of tomato production in innovative urban agriculture systems». Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 367 (September 2022), art. 133037. DOI 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.133037 <https://ddd.uab.cat/record/264432>
Lead by Jordi Vallverdú Segura
CSI-COP is a European project that investigates through the collection of citizen data. The main objectives of the project are to raise public awareness of the personal data collected in the apps they have installed and the websites they visit, and to educate citizens about the rights protected by the European Union's (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In the medium term, the aim is for all citizens to know what personal data is collected when visiting websites and installing apps and what privacy rights the EU protects. The project is aimed at the general public who use websites and have applications installed on different devices. People who want to participate in this project as citizen scientists have to do a short training (which can be certified for free), then they can do a short analysis of one or several websites or apps and, finally, if they wish, they can write a report on the observation made. In addition to this short self-training provided, the CSI-COP project is planning a series of presentations and workshops to be announced in the near future. By doing the training offered by the project, you can acquire skills about the data collected by cookies on websites, learn about tools to track websites and apps (both for iOS and Android) and know how to discern between places where our rights are respected, become aware of the data and the consent you are giving and, finally, gain an understanding of the rights that the EU GDPR protects. The CSI-COP project has a website that gives access to self-training, as well as to a discussion forum on this training, to the newsletter and also to the project's blog. In addition to the knowledge acquired on an individual level, participating in the CSI-COP project contributes to the collective knowledge on the subject of cookies, to the general knowledge of the GDPR and to making it possible to propose legislative changes. If you want to participate in this European citizen science project and get started in the world of privacy/cookies, take the short course offered by the CSI-COP project!
Project information
Start date: January 1, 2020
End date: August 31, 2023
Finançament: H2020 SwafS (RIA)
More information:
Results
Publications and results
- Book edited by Jordi Vallverdú (2023): Gender and AI in Robotics
- Scientific article: Vallverdú, Jordi. «Approximate and Situated Causality in Deep Learning». Philosophies, Vol. 5 Núm. 1 (2020), p. 2. DOI 10.3390/philosophies5010002
- Other open access publications: Citizen Scientists Investigating Cookies and App GDPR compliance | Zenodo
- Results repository: WEB-BASED OPEN-ACCESS KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE OF DIGITAL TRACKERS
Articles, news and interviews
- ‘The Cookie Jar: Protecting Children’s Data Online’
- ’Why is the protection of online privacy important to the citizen science community?’
- CSI-COP recognised as the "Best Innovative Privacy Project" at the last edition of the PICCASO Privacy Awards
- Popup: Jordi Vallverdú (UAB): "Quan tens moltes dades, l'anonimització no existeix"
- TV3: "Jo no tinc res a amagar": els riscos d'acceptar sempre totes les cookies
- Catalunya Radio: La tarda de Catalunya Ràdio, de 17 a 18 h - 09/06/2023
- COPE: El matí cap de setmana amb Mar Puerto
- Escudo Digital: Por qué no siempre debemos aceptar las cookies
- La Sexta: Así puede afectar la Inteligencia Artificial a los niños: "Su desarrollo podría ser incompleto o artificial"