Strengthening citizen science and sustainability monitoring in Europe

Co-coordinated by Ibercivis – an organization specialized in the promotion, development and visibility of citizen science – and the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), RIECS-Concept brings together partners from eight European countries—Austria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland—to develop a conceptual framework for a pan-European citizen science research infrastructure. The project aims to strengthen the integration of citizen science data into environmental governance and set the stage for a new era of collaborative, impactful, and sustainable citizen science in Europe.

During the project’s recent kickoff event in Brussels, Fermin Serrano, project coordinator from Ibercivis, reflected on the initiative’s origins, highlighting its strong backing from key actors in citizen science. He emphasized that while citizen science holds significant potential, it remains underutilized – an issue RIECS-Concept aims to challenge by creating a conceptualized research infrastructure, with its main deliverable being a documented plan or roadmap for future implementation beyond the project itself.

IIASA is a partner in the project, contributing expertise in citizen science-driven sustainability monitoring. Katya Perez Guzman, a research scholar in the NODES Research Group, underscored the transformative power of citizen science in global sustainability efforts.

"Citizen science has proven to be an invaluable source of data for tracking progress on sustainability efforts such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Large-scale engagement of citizens in data collection and validation not only fills critical data gaps but also strengthens policy relevance and local action," she says.

The project aims to advance citizen science initiatives, similar to previous work done by IIASA researchers, including a notable initiative that helped Ghana become the first country to integrate citizen science data on marine plastic litter into its official monitoring and reporting for SDG indicator 14.1.1b. The data collected from 2016 to 2020 was included in Ghana’s 2022 Voluntary National Review of the SDGs and reported in the UN SDG Global Database. This initiative demonstrated how citizen science data can bridge the gap between local data collection efforts and global sustainability monitoring.

IIASA researchers are actively involved in shaping the technical and policy aspects of the RIECS-Concept.

"Our work focuses on designing a technical infrastructure that supports citizen science at scale, ensuring the data collected is useful, reliable, and can be effectively integrated into decision-making processes," notes Linda See, principal research scholar in the NODES Research Group at IIASA.

Dilek Fraisl, a senior research scholar in the NODES Research Group who is also involved in the project, highlighted the policy engagement aspect, saying, "It is essential to ensure that citizen science data is recognized and utilized in policy frameworks. Our work will help connect local citizen science efforts with European and global environmental governance and sustainability monitoring."

RIECS-Concept is funded under the HORIZON-INFRA-2024-DEV-01-01 call, which supports the development of new research infrastructure concepts of European interest. The project is part of the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme and has been awarded funding under grant agreement No. 101188210.