Periodic Reporting for period 1 - OTTERS (Social Transformation for Water Stewardship through Scaling Up Citizen Science)
Période du rapport: 2023-01-01 au 2024-06-30
Citizen science has an enormous potential of mass-scale data collection, democratisation of data access, knowledge generation, and public awareness-raising. To realize the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030” EU-wide data coverage must be ensured. The goal of the Mission is that 20% of marine data should come from citizen science by 2025.
The OTTERS project strives to accelerate this process by upscaling the citizen science in Europe and its neighboring countries. For this purpose, citizen science initiatives require standardised methods for data collection that are in line with policy, scientific standards, and pre-existing or large-scale/long-term data collection initiatives. In addition, they need to overcome institutional and ethical challenges. Moreover, to achieve the social transformational goals, citizen science initiatives need to be embedded into narratives and sustained campaigns that aim not only to change minds but also hearts, as well as generate data for research or monitoring purposes. To meet this challenge, OTTERS seeks to facilitate EU-funded citizen science initiatives to:
1. accelerate the co-creation of standards in data collection, semantics, data quality, and data management making sure to abide by all ethical and legal standards;
2. promote and scale up successful water-related CS initiatives by clustering them under co-designed Spring-to-Sea campaigns to foster agency and increase ocean literacy;
3. connect the citizen-generated data to other EU-funded projects and portals, including the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) and Digital Twins of the Ocean (ILIAD) to ensure the accessibility and reuse of the data and abide by all FAIR principles;
4. demonstrate the effectiveness of citizen science in participatory research, environmental monitoring and changing people’s behaviors to ensure the sustainability of water ecosystems and reach the goals of the EU Water Framework Directive and UN Decade of the Ocean.
The OTTERS project strives to accelerate this process by upscaling the citizen science in Europe and its neighboring countries. For this purpose, citizen science initiatives require standardised methods for data collection that are in line with policy, scientific standards, and pre-existing or large-scale/long-term data collection initiatives. In addition, they need to overcome institutional and ethical challenges. Moreover, to achieve the social transformational goals, citizen science initiatives need to be embedded into narratives and sustained campaigns that aim not only to change minds but also hearts, as well as generate data for research or monitoring purposes. To meet this challenge, OTTERS seeks to facilitate EU-funded citizen science initiatives to:
1. accelerate the co-creation of standards in data collection, semantics, data quality, and data management making sure to abide by all ethical and legal standards;
2. promote and scale up successful water-related CS initiatives by clustering them under co-designed Spring-to-Sea campaigns to foster agency and increase ocean literacy;
3. connect the citizen-generated data to other EU-funded projects and portals, including the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) and Digital Twins of the Ocean (ILIAD) to ensure the accessibility and reuse of the data and abide by all FAIR principles;
4. demonstrate the effectiveness of citizen science in participatory research, environmental monitoring and changing people’s behaviors to ensure the sustainability of water ecosystems and reach the goals of the EU Water Framework Directive and UN Decade of the Ocean.
1. A series of webinars on standardisation issues, including legal and ethical considerations
2. 3 draft white papers on CS Data Standardization
3. 3 Initial guidebooks created for the Changing Hearts and Minds Campaigns
4. Summer School for Educators
5. Workshops with Educators
6. ECSA Working Group about Citizen Science in Aquatic Environments
7. Resource hub which is connected to the EU-citizen.science platform
8. Reports from Workshop at the ECSA conference
2. 3 draft white papers on CS Data Standardization
3. 3 Initial guidebooks created for the Changing Hearts and Minds Campaigns
4. Summer School for Educators
5. Workshops with Educators
6. ECSA Working Group about Citizen Science in Aquatic Environments
7. Resource hub which is connected to the EU-citizen.science platform
8. Reports from Workshop at the ECSA conference
Towards meeting its objective of accelerating the co-creation of citizen (CS) standards, OTTERS organised a series of webinars to 1)highlight successful methods & approaches used in multiple citizen-engagement projects, 2)hold expert discussions on standardisation issues, spanning from discussions on methodology, data sharing & accessibility, to legal & ethical issues involving citizen privacy, authorship, data transfer & exploitation, & use of artificial intelligence with citizen-generated data.
To assess the effectiveness of CS for research, innovation, & policy advancement, OTTERS co-organised with Iliad a session at the Ocean Best Practices Workshop VII to discuss technological & legal challenges of ingesting citizen-generated data into larger repositories to be used for environmental monitoring, policy compliance, forecasting, commercial & digital twin applications. An in-person workshop was organised during the ECSA Conference for the standardisation of CS data to meet the needs of specific EU freshwater & marine policy instruments & UN SDGs. Discussions were recorded, feedback from experts, practitioners captured & integrated, along with research conducted by the team, into three draft papers on CS data standardisation, published openly on Zenodo.
During the ECSA Conference Workshop, multiple requests were received from participants about fulfilling the need to create a working group within the European CS Association to focus on standardisation issues related to CS methods & data in aquatic ecosystems, as well facilitate knowledge exchange & collaboration in this domain. We answered the call by the creation of the ECSA Aquatic Ecosystems & CS Working Group, co-chaired by three consortium members.
To demonstrate the effective embedding of CS in initiatives seeking societal transformation, OTTERS organised a workshop during the European Week of Regions & Cities that featured policy experts from the EU & UN, as well as Mediterranean-based CS initiatives, providing valuable insights that contribute to the advancement water stewardship. We’ve conducted multiple co-design exercises with various stakeholders including policymakers, academics, CS practitioners, educators, students, & members of civil society to identify challenges, opportunities, & pathways towards scaling up CS initiatives. To this aim, we also conducted research to develop a repository of past & ongoing CS campaigns. The findings were used to decide on the locations of the three pilot Spring-to-Sea Water Stewardship campaigns that are to be developed in 2024 & ‘25. Three initial guidebooks were created for the Changing Hearts & Minds Campaign that are currently being tested with various stakeholders.
To promote Ocean Literacy & integrate CS in school & university curricula, workshops were organised locally & on a European scale. Participating educators were presented about the concept of using CS for water monitoring as a project-based learning module & their feedback was captured. A summer school for high school educators was organised in Greece to host teachers from different European countries, where they were introduced about OTTERS, The Mission Ocean, the European Blue Schools Network. They received theoretical lectures & hands-on training on how to use kits to measure water quality & pollution. We also participated in the Ocean Literacy Day & engaged & collaborated with a number of projects in this sphere. We organised an online workshop, hosting experts from ocean literacy projects to disseminate knowledge & facilitate collaboration. Thereafter, interested educators contacted us for support to apply for opportunities within the Mission Ocean initiatives & join the European Blue Schools Network. We have since been working with a number of schools in Armenia & Portugal to provide support in developing proposals & providing toolkits of best practices.
To make such valuable materials easily accessible & available beyond the timespan of the OTTERS project, the CS Resource Hub will be deployed on the eu-citizen.science platform.
To assess the effectiveness of CS for research, innovation, & policy advancement, OTTERS co-organised with Iliad a session at the Ocean Best Practices Workshop VII to discuss technological & legal challenges of ingesting citizen-generated data into larger repositories to be used for environmental monitoring, policy compliance, forecasting, commercial & digital twin applications. An in-person workshop was organised during the ECSA Conference for the standardisation of CS data to meet the needs of specific EU freshwater & marine policy instruments & UN SDGs. Discussions were recorded, feedback from experts, practitioners captured & integrated, along with research conducted by the team, into three draft papers on CS data standardisation, published openly on Zenodo.
During the ECSA Conference Workshop, multiple requests were received from participants about fulfilling the need to create a working group within the European CS Association to focus on standardisation issues related to CS methods & data in aquatic ecosystems, as well facilitate knowledge exchange & collaboration in this domain. We answered the call by the creation of the ECSA Aquatic Ecosystems & CS Working Group, co-chaired by three consortium members.
To demonstrate the effective embedding of CS in initiatives seeking societal transformation, OTTERS organised a workshop during the European Week of Regions & Cities that featured policy experts from the EU & UN, as well as Mediterranean-based CS initiatives, providing valuable insights that contribute to the advancement water stewardship. We’ve conducted multiple co-design exercises with various stakeholders including policymakers, academics, CS practitioners, educators, students, & members of civil society to identify challenges, opportunities, & pathways towards scaling up CS initiatives. To this aim, we also conducted research to develop a repository of past & ongoing CS campaigns. The findings were used to decide on the locations of the three pilot Spring-to-Sea Water Stewardship campaigns that are to be developed in 2024 & ‘25. Three initial guidebooks were created for the Changing Hearts & Minds Campaign that are currently being tested with various stakeholders.
To promote Ocean Literacy & integrate CS in school & university curricula, workshops were organised locally & on a European scale. Participating educators were presented about the concept of using CS for water monitoring as a project-based learning module & their feedback was captured. A summer school for high school educators was organised in Greece to host teachers from different European countries, where they were introduced about OTTERS, The Mission Ocean, the European Blue Schools Network. They received theoretical lectures & hands-on training on how to use kits to measure water quality & pollution. We also participated in the Ocean Literacy Day & engaged & collaborated with a number of projects in this sphere. We organised an online workshop, hosting experts from ocean literacy projects to disseminate knowledge & facilitate collaboration. Thereafter, interested educators contacted us for support to apply for opportunities within the Mission Ocean initiatives & join the European Blue Schools Network. We have since been working with a number of schools in Armenia & Portugal to provide support in developing proposals & providing toolkits of best practices.
To make such valuable materials easily accessible & available beyond the timespan of the OTTERS project, the CS Resource Hub will be deployed on the eu-citizen.science platform.