When the PandeVITA proposal was submitted in April 2020, the pandemic started just less than two months ago, where the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially changed its classification of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 from a public health emergency of international concern to a pandemic. At that time, among other measures nearly in all countries of Europe including Turkey, public life was almost shut down. The COVID-19 crisis was of course not the first pandemic crisis that the world faced. The last influenza pandemic, H1N1/09 Flu Pandemic (so-called “Swine Flu”), happened in 2009/2010. Social media already started dominating media-based communication, but at that time the penetration of society with smartphones was just the beginning. According to zenithmedia.com , 66% of the people in 52 key countries owned a smartphone in 2018. It means that online communication went increasingly mobile and consequently, the information needs of society increased accordingly. This causes pressure on all systems of the quadruple helix (science, economy, politics and media and culture-based public). Because of the political and social pressure to get fast information, as well as under the pressure of competition among scientific journals, scientists publish very fast, sometimes too fast without accurate and high-quality peer review processes . In other words, the COVID-19 crisis is the first pandemic where the smartphone plays a central role in the communication processes of society. Accordingly, we are confronted with an immense amount of data and information every day and one of the main challenges is to filter out the junk and fake news and focus on relevant information.
According to the identified research gaps, PandeVITA aimed
++ to enable citizens to gather data for scientific experts needed for accurate and efficient research to combat pandemics,
++ to supply citizens with specific, accurate and effective recommendations and advice,
++ to generate social awareness and responsible behaviour among citizens in the context of user-generated content production,
++ to enable knowledge transfer inside of the quadruple helix on the European level,
++ to enable a traceback of pandemic relevant information about mobility impact and communication patterns for present and future measures and sustainable developments,
++ to guarantee responsible usage and handling of personal data according to European ethical standards.
