These are notes from the first day of the summer school at Université de Louvain (UCLouvain) on 7-11 July 2025 in Louvain-la-Neuve, and funded by Circle-U university alliance. The course included teachers from the University of Amsterdam, Aarhus University, University Paris Cité, University of Vienna, and UCLouvain. **Jaqui Goldin** provided the first talk, exploring the ethics and practice of citizen science – and the principles of doing citizen science. Ethics as a set of moral principles that guide human actions, Jaqui pointed that values can be shared by artists, leaders and researchers. Ethics is what is right and what is wrong – there are different levels: personal, household, researcher, member of an organisation, citizen, etc. The 10 principles that she suggested for practitioners: low cost technology and appropriate instruments; second iterative training – slowly and repeating; one size doesn’t fit all and adapt to their needs; Verification, validation and visible – important to make the results visible; appreciate multiple stakeholders and the meshwork of relationships in the places where you are; share finding; methods to capture voice – art, voice etc.; recognition of champions and the people who become pattionate; cultural diversity; and purpose of making science accessible. The Diversity Research Umbrella Manual (DRUM) provides methods to give voice https://doy-community.sites.uu.nl/wp-content/uploads/sites/918/2025/03/Drum_presentation-Small.pdf Jaqui Goldin message to participants Jaqui’s 10 principles for practitioners **Gitte Kragh** covered the 10 principles of citizen science, going through each of them. Gitte emphasised the need to recognise that genuine science outcomes can take many shapes. In principle 3, the benefits can take different forms – from those that mostly benefit the scientists (data) to projects that benefit the community. Through covering different types of projects, Gitte demonstrated how the principles are implemented in different projects. Gitte introducing participants to the motivation, while hybrid participants are sharing their questions online on the screen **Didone Figerio** ran the session on the citizen scientists, starting with interest in birds in the 1850s, to make the school students think about how to do things when technology was not available. The postcards of bird observations were a serious and effective way to share and gather information. Observing natural phenomena that have also been going on for a very long time, with reporting to national or research bodies. In ornithology and natural phenomena, there is a sharing of knowledge between people. In the digital period, Foldit provides an example of the power of the internet (e.g. Galaxy Zoo) and the creativity of scientists, and working with other researchers in other areas. It was done through gamification. The participants then use case studies of citizen science projects (about half of them from Belgium) to explore questions about the challenge that was explored and identify who the citizen scientists and consider the added value. Didone guiding participants through an hybrid post-it exercise After lunch, **Cléa Montenary and I** covered the history and complex terminology of the field of citizen science and introduced four typologies (Shirk et al. 2012, Wiggins and Crowston 2013, Strasser et al, and Haklay, Mazumdar and Wardlaw 2018). We then followed by group work of participants who took different citizen science case studies that we have prepared for the summer school (such as WeCount, Isala, Leichens GO, etc.) and analysed how they would map to different typologies. Cléa introduces her personal journey to citizen science The second day started with **Gitte Kragh** covering the motivation and participation of citizen scientists in projects. Students explored the disrupters and enablers of participation. Steve Bers guide participants through science communication for citizen science **Jef Van Laer, Karen Verstraelen and Steve Bers** from SCivil covered aspects of science communication in the context of citizen science. An example of a very well-communicated project is Isala, which got many more participants than planned. Potential ways of carrying out communication activities for the project, such as the use of social media or stickers in the street. Scivil have a guide on communication in citizen science. Science communication and citizen science are intertwined but there are differences. They are both about informing people, but in CS it also try to get action: train, mobilise, and engage. To achieve that, you can have a communication plan instead of just getting to the project without considering it. The first thing in the communication plan is to clarify the project goals and why citizen science needs to play a part. How does it fit into the project and what is the added value. We can define the level of involvement that we want, from collecting information and data, but it is also possible to ask people to suggest research questions. There is a need to define the target audience and to map the motivation of the participants in the project. Then there is a need to engage and evaluate, not only to evaluate at the end, and consider follow-up during and after the project. Some recommended approaches include surfing the wave of existing networks, projects can link to existing societies and local history networks. Providing an enjoyable and fun experience to participants, such as bringing people to a historical building or special tours. Social media is also a powerful tool for engagement and outreach. Especially using interesting events and outcomes, for example, training people on how to find and identify spiders. Storytelling is a very good way of engaging and communicating. For example, if an interesting discovery is made during digitalisation, it can show how the work is interesting. This is also connected to gemification. The working with ambassadors or community volunteers who are becoming highly involved, they can spread the word. Consider how to keep things clear and uniform, how to connect it to relevant events and news. The guide of SCivil is at https://www.scivil.be/sites/default/files/paragraph/files/2020-01/Scivil%20Communication%20Guide.pdf The afternoon session, led by Noelia Valderrama focused on the data quality issues such as technology and material choice, secondly, the field setup and standardisation, thirdly, having some reference data and validation, and finally, data gathering and integrity. Different groups worked on these aspects of three projects – ATRAP, Lichens GO, and CurieuzeNeuzen projects and explored the data quality aspects of these projects. Considering data quality in **CurieuzenAir** through a game Noelia explains aspects of data quality The third day started with a discussion about successful and unsuccessful project, especially with identifying points of failure that can cause a problem of total failure of a project. Didone led the discussion, with Gitte and I contributing examples of failed projects. The last session of training explored the issue of trust in citizen science. **Mercy Ashept** led the session with the participants looking at three projects (ATRAP, Increase, and noise mapping) using their assessment to consider if they find the project successful. They rank projects from trustworthy to not. By considering the point of view of the public, the scientists, and the policy makers, it was possible to consider different factors that would influence the trustworthiness of the project. Mercy discuss with participants their observations The fourth day (and my last day of participation in the summer school) included covering, in depth, four projects. First, Mercy covered her analysis of participation in Global South projects and ATTRAP, then Jaqui covered the Diamond in the sole of their shoes project, Caroline covered HARISSA, and finally I covered Extreme Citizen Science and the applications of Sapelli. The projects showed common challenges of technology and the use of it in the field (breakage, theft) etc. Additional questions of ethics, political context, and other commonality were explored. Following that, the participants analysed the challenges (social, economic, and political) and the keys to implementation and potential solutions in the projects **Reflections of the summer school** First, the **use of case studies** , especially those where some of the teachers have a deep knowledge of, is very effective. Over the days of the summer school, the participants looked at these case studies and addressed different facets (engagement, motivation, working in Global South context). The case studies and the ability to learn more about them were an effective way to have well-worked examples of citizen science projects that the participants can explore and learn from. Instead of having preliminary ideas about potential projects, the case studies were more solid learning and teaching material. It is possible to prepare detailed case studies that address all the issues that are covered in the school, but even if they are not completely comprehensive, it is possible to find more information from the person who knows about it in the room or online. Second, the **mix of participants – including many PhD students, researchers, and academics** – worked well. The questions ranged from the very practical to the philosophical ones. As with all the previous summer schools that I joined, the several days of concentrated learning, longer coffee and lunch breaks, and group work created enough time for people to connect with each other and build an ability to respect each other views. There was a very large interdisciplinary mix, as is common in citizen science – from sociology to natural sciences and engineering. It was also very impressive to have about 55 participants – about 35 in the room and another 10 to 20 online. Third, **the potential and limitation of “discount hybridity”.** Luckily, the room of the summer school was set up for hybrid teaching, including two large screens, several microphones in the room and four self-focusing cameras. To make the summer school more accessible, we accepted remote students who can join online. As always with technologies, there are limitations and complexities – such as limitations in break-up rooms that require switching between Teams and Zoom. Running a hybrid course require to physically consider online participants (so standing and talking at some specific points in the room) as well as dedicated effort from the teaching team – we needed a person from the teaching team to be online and respond to the online participants – it was helpful to have the chat appearing on the screen so we can refer to it during discussions and from time to time allow online participants to join in. With an investment of design by Gitte, a MIRO board was created to allow collaboration and contributions from the online participants, and during the breakout sessions, a member of the teaching team was online to support the discussion of online participants. All in all, it means that it is possible but require a resource of two of the teaching team and a room set up that supports it. It was important not to compromise the face to face experience – see the data quality games. To allow participants an opportunity to explore their own projects, we set out two mentoring sessions and maybe it is useful to have an explicit session at the end or a follow up calls – we’ll see. A fourth observation is that **having a good facility** at UCLouvain helped a lot – we had breakout rooms and space for coffee and discussion throughout the summer school. The coffee area included fruit, biscuits and other lovely things that the UCLouvain team organised. Those aspects are important in creating a good atmosphere and giving the participants in the summer school a good opportunity to talk with other students or the tutors. The lunches also provided the time for such discussion, and as frequently happens, people become more relaxed and willing to explore issues with the teachers on the course by the end of the second day, and also starting to make cross connections between participants. Discussions over dinner, coffee, or beer are always good. It is actually those things that make a summer school and immersive and intensive learning experience. Fifth, I have noticed in the past year the increased willingness of trainers to **use game and game-like tools in the process of learning**. They do require planning, dedicated printing (card games) and props such as printed map, a playing dice etc. But they are creating an engaging and enjoyable session – especially suitable for a summer school. The ATRAP game Sixth, be aware that many participants in such a summer school **never participated in a citizen science activity**. While we included in the third day a session for experiencing citizen science (iNat, noise mapping, accessibility mapping with Wheelmap and Google Local Guides), in hindsight that could be a preparatory activity to ensure that people have some experience and ability to think like participants. The summer school was funded by a grant from **Circle U.** a university alliance that is part of a programme of facilitating knowledge exchange between universities across the European Union. Caoline Michellier, who led the project, was interested in raising awareness to citizen science at UCLouvain because of the apparent weakness of citizen science visibility and activities in Volunia (in comparison to Brussels or Flanders, where there is support and some outstanding projects). The summer school demonstrated the sharing of expertise across the university alliance and the ability to bring expertise. The activity also helped in making people at UCLouvain aware of citizen science and it helped in making people in different parts of the university aware of this area and its potential. Following the model of TIME4CS, this might be the first stage in encouraging institutional support at UCLouvain. Running a summer school is a high effort and intense investment – it requires planning, session development, creation of class activities and case studies. The logistics are also complex and it was done in an excellent, welcoming, and seamless manner by the UCLouvain team. There is now a LinkedIn group for the people who participated and I hope that it will help in developing citizen science at the university. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Like Loading... ### _Related_

CAPS 2025, like the previous conferences of the Association for Advancing Participatory Science (AAPS, formerly the Citizen Science Association), was an opportunity to learn about the state of citizen science in the USA. The conference took place in Portland, Oregon, where 13 years ago the first conference of what will become the CSA took place. At that time, the term **Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR)** was used to describe the field, with about 300 participants. A similar number showed up this time – despite the hopes of the AAPS for about 600 or even more. Worth noticing how, within 15 years, three varieties of terminology were used to bring people from the field together: Public Participation in Scientific Research, Citizen Science, and now Participatory Science. It is also worth noticing that the face-to-face conferences of the AAPS, which take place every two years, ended with a similar number of participants (if I’m not mistaken), not matching the growth of the European conferences over the same time. Unsurprisingly, the deep cuts in federal funding, with an indiscriminate and deliberate destruction of all areas of research were felt throughout the conference. There was an absence of funders that were central to the field in the past: the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the informal education division in the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institute for Health (NIH). Only NASA was represented, and news about the severe risk of their citizen science demise came shortly after the conference. Researchers who had their funding cancelled couldn’t show up. Even the philanthropic funders that were at the conference emphasised that they are not in a position to be a replacement for the federal science funding. These impacts were felt and influenced the conference and the mood – a lot of questions about the future of the field were circulating. Despite that, the people that attended the conference were optimistic and active in their efforts to engage more people actively in scientific research. In contrast to the European conference, there is better participation and representation from practitioners who are running citizen science activities, from monitoring streams for water quality, to studying biodiversity. The stunning growth of iNaturalist, which was recognised in a keynote at the conference, is a reason for celebration. Over the last decade, it has replaced many other platforms that were developed around the early 2000s to become a central tool for biodiversity data collection and sharing. The activities of the university extensions (part of a university system with a dedicated mission to address agriculture and local rural environmental needs through cooperative action research) create many opportunities for citizen science. There are a lot of experience that comes from practitioners and that are shared at the conference, and that also give the conference a regional flavour, with more people who work on stream monitoring or biodiversity monitoring coming to it from the local community. This might mean (and I don’t know enough about the reality) that there is a large national community of participatory research practitioners that can be part of AAPS. The conference includes many topics that are somewhat similar to those that appeared in previous years, which is natural when the focus is on the participation of practitioners who share their experiences and case studies. Some of the new topics that emerged include the challenges and opportunities of utilising artificial intelligence. On the other hand, there was no longer attention to Do-It-Yourself scientific tools which were noted in the past. There were many sessions dedicated to education – from schools to universities. The presentations and discussions that were organised by European representatives who shared their experiences provided a demonstration of the maturity of the field in Europe and the value in sharing and discussing these with other communities. Another valuable insight was given from local indigenous voices. While the conference in North Carolina brought up the challenges of mostly black communities, the context of the Pacific Northwest brought the experiences of local tribes with somewhat better legal structure. However, the challenges of collaboration and equitable work between researchers and communities were comparable. It seems to me that the squeeze on universities’ research budgets can open up some opportunities for novel ways to collaborate with alternative sources of funding that might allow more equitable work than the traditional research funders. Compared to other areas of science, participatory researchers are used to working with very limited budgets, and while this will undoubtedly limit the innovations and the development of research in the field, it will allow some activities to continue. It was also good to see the increasing roles of universities – form research libraries to public ones, in contributing to citizen science and supporting their communities. The sessions about the journals in citizen science – Citizen Science: Theory and Practice and Community Science – received attention and gave opportunities, especially for early career researchers to understand how to shape their work so it is suitable for publishing. The poster and the talk sessions demonstrated that there are many students at MSc and PhD levels with an interest in participatory methods. The change of name from citizen science to participatory science perhaps attracted people from more research areas, including from social science – although the ecological and environmental areas were still dominant. An example for that was a session about participatory digital research from people who work on issues such as misinformation and disinformation and thought that the conference might be a good place for them to present. It was also valuable to hear the ideas of researchers on future papers and research in the workshop and sessions that I was involved in. I was involved in running a workshop on the integration of citizen science/participatory research within funding applications, and about 10 participants joined in, sharing their experience and attempting to implement some of the concepts that were covered in the workshop. This was one of several workshops and sessions that were led by European researchers, sharing experiences and learning with the benefits of the European funding, which is far from secure for the future. Many thanks for the teams at AAPS, Portland State University and Oregon State University that organised and run the conference – it was run very well and there was clearly a lot of planning behind it! ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Like Loading... ### _Related_

1. Jeremy FiveCrows (Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission) 2. Gabe Sheoships Friends of Tryon Creek State Park, director 3. Lili Yazzie (Diné) Friends of Tryon Creek State Park, Green Leaders Workforce Coordinator. 4. Darius Yaw (PSU) Indigenous Traditional Ecological & Cultural Knowledge 5. Lu Whitebear (Assistant Professor, Indigenous Studies, Oregon State University) and Tim Hecox (World Forestry Center) Examples of partnerships – the issue of supporting fire that is done by bringing cultural fire and considering how to do a controlled burn, but it is also done in understanding the landscape and learning about the fire. In contrast, cultural burn was an intergenerational element and some of the safety aspects are blocking learning. It’s a cultural event of importance. Sometimes, when inviting a single person doesn’t work for people who are working as a community, so even a personal invitation becomes something that several people show up. Concepts of othering the idea of tribes (e.g. are you still living in a tipi). It’s a certain dehumanisation (and that also reflected in the concept of what food is relevant to them etc.) . Ignoring indigenous knowledge looks odd of ignoring thousands of years of knowledge, and reflect dehumanisation or racism. Collaboration around a specific project, say stream restoration can be healing and bring together people and realising that they can learn from indigenous people. Issues of identity and recognition of the identity by other people come up a lot. Also, the reluctance of people who are interested in understanding indigenous knowledge is that they feel they can’t join and learn. Misconception about research and research methodologies – for example, reading decolonising methodology. The issue with indigenous literature allows to unlock the mind and approach. Misconceptions that anthropologists have the right to speak about other people when they are around. Activities such as basket weaving is not the act itself but the use and demonstration of ancestral knowledge. Pan-indigeneity – things that there are commonalities across all indigenous groups, but this is a wrong idea and a lack of acceptance of the variabilities. Connection to the land and also sharing and moving with indigenous knowledge but living in another place came up. Misconceptions are also created through the educational system, lacking in recognising tribal culture and its contribution. A view that they were in the past and are not around anymore. A need to be able to learn and listen to different forms of understanding and see the world. Accepting sovereignty and respect – remembers that tribes are tapped a lot and they might have different priorities. Coming from spaces of intergenerational learning. Consider inclusion from the beginning and building the bridges. In the US and Canada, there are aspects of sovereignty and trusts that need to be taken into account. Need to consider intertribal spaces. Approaching the knowledge of people who have been living in the place with humility. Issues of learning about atrocities, trauma and it is needed for healing and rebuilding. Embracing indigenous communities within a settler colonialist society – learn about those aspects and learn about the history and background before you approach. Colonialism continues to happen to communities and needs to be considered. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Like Loading... ### _Related_

This week it’s the Association for Advancing Participatory Science conference (27-30 May 2025). The opening keynote was given by iNaturalist Scott Loarie, the executive director of iNaturalist. Scott covered **5 lessons from iNat**. It started as an MSc project, and has been going in for 17 years. It’s growing over time, about 8m observation. Seasonality of the northern hemisphere. Starting slow, and COVID provided a boost. It takes time to get off the ground. iNat is about focus on a critical challenge – the specific niche is try to give a spotlite on the species, there are not enough scientists to name species, describe, document and study them. We are going to lose one in three species. Can people document and protect species. Second point – make it fun and make it enjoyable. Get people to go outside and post, don’t make it too complicated and not fun to do. A student in Ecuador found a new type of butterfly. In Papua New Guinea, a bird that hasn’t been seen for a long time. Lesson three – make it social: CS involve people – it’s a feature, not a bug. Bioblitz in Sri lanca. City nature challenge is the biggest recording of biology on earth. CNC over million observation. 1 in 40 species in the world were recorded. A big celebration of life on earth. Build a new kind of scientific instrument and make it open – it’s a new tool that allows things to be seen in a way that wasn’t possible before. By making the tool open, it’s now got 6000 publications that are based on iNat. Make it easy. We can see changes in species distribution because of the temporal aspect. There is also an increase in invasive species that get into new areas and can be found in recording. There are also indications of other species that contract in terms of coverage. Papers that are utilising iNaturalist are also discovering information within a photo, noticing aspects about morphology, phenology, evidence for food consumption, and the photo can provide insights into changes. The many 100m of photos allow for the AI tool to work on them. Computer vision is providing a new journey. DNA is also linked to photo and sequencing the DNA that is also posted on iNat, and discovering new mushrooms. Last lesson – don’t just crowdsource science, crowdsource solutions. The process is not to assume that the linear pipeline from scientists to policy makers, but actually, you go into dealing with conservation – what is the theory of change to get people to deal with a problem. There are cases of restoring habitat based on observation – skip the scientific publication and go for the solution. Also, noticing newts through a community-based process to create a crossing for newts. Comparing lessons from SEEK to iNat and finding a route between the two. Generative AI is possible because of sharing information together and AI will need curious people sharing stuff on the internet. Humans in the loop of AI and as a way to use it for open scientific commenting and can help navigate the crazy AI. There is a concern about falsifying data and putting images that have been created through AI. Partnership of iNat, one of the key decisions of iNat is the ability to create projects – it’s a reason for scaling, and that feature allows lowering the barrier to entry to use iNat for their aim and to use it as a tool. CNC can bring iNat down and require planning – trying to keep servers that run on $480K a year and need to grow but keep it lean. They are building a long-term scientific infrastructure, but that is supposed to continue. GBiF exist as a place to share data is incredible, and it doesn’t have an equivalent in other areas. Assessing the impact of iNat requires more studying and analysing,g and trying to build a better system to tell the story. Ambition – 100m people participating in monitoring nature, and can we build a tool that can help move from recording to stewardship. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Like Loading... ### _Related_

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Muki Haklay, UCL London

Henry PurcellDido and Aeneas 1659-1695)Die Oper "Dido and Aeneas" des englischen Barockkomponisten Henry Purcell (1659 –1695) schildert die tragische Geschic...