The IMPETUS Citizen Panel gathers citizen science practitioners and it is essential to the way IMPETUS wants to design, plan and execute its work plan. The panel will be growing over time, adding 10 members each year, until 2024. Its main roles are:

  1. Define challenges for the IMPETUS accelerator call​
  2. Nominate projects, and a jury member for the European Union Prize for Citizen Science​
  3. Be ambassadors for the project

Meet the members of our citizen panel here!

Maria Leão

She/her
Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, ITQB NOVA, Oeiras Valley
Oeiras, Portugal

Your involvement in citizen science

Coordinator of the Citizen Science Programme “Ciência + Cidadã”, in a close partnership between Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, ITQB NOVA and Oeiras Municipality. We aim to implement a Citizen Science strategy at an institutional level in a multidisciplinary approach with the support of partners from different sectors of society. We also collaborate with the Portuguese Network for Citizen Science. 

Read more

What motivates you the most about citizen science?

I believe that Citizen Science is an excellent opportunity for both researchers and citizens to engage and to learn with each other and can improve scientific research  in an impactful way for society in general. 

I think the opportunity to be part of the IMPETUS Citizen Panel will be excellent to network and to establish collaborations at the European level. 

Katarzyna Pydzińska Azevedo

She/her
Porto, Portugal

Your involvement in citizen science

I am actively involved in the activities of the Portuguese Network for Citizen Science and in organisation of some local events for CS promotion. My current doctoral research at the University of Porto (Department of Sociology) is also related to CS, with my PhD thesis focused on the potential of citizen science for better local policy making and SDGs monitoring, especially in urban context. 

Over the years trough my professional work at INOVA+ I have been involved in numerous European projects, often in the related areas (citizen engagement, co-creation, open innovation & open science, science communication and promotion) and my interest in citizen science grew stronger. On the other hand, long-term participation in the CIVITAS initiative and similar urban-focused projects increased dedication to the theme of sustainable and liveable cities, hence leading to my current priority area of CS and active citizenship.

Read more

What motivates you the most about citizen science?

I am an advocate of citizen engagement and active participation, not only in science. But I believe that especially citizen science offers so many benefits to all stakeholders involved that it is deserves broader promotion and wider uptake in our societies. CS may not only democratize further research and knowledge production, but also help address real community needs and make public data more representative, leading to a more informed decision-making. 

The fact that CS actively involves citizens, as well as its open, collaborative and transdisciplinary character motivate me most about this concept. I trust that overall CS has a lot of potential to improve science-society-policy interactions and help address various challenges that we face today.

Zuzana Stožická

She/her
Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information, Bratislava, Slovakia

Your involvement in citizen science

I promote citizen science in Slovakia. With my colleagues from Department of open science support in SCSTI we created first Slovak introductory course on citizen science and the list of CS (or participatory research) projects in Slovakia. We translate educational materials, write articles about CS in Slovak, lecture and invite people from the participatory projects to have webinars and talks to public. Our aim is to establish citizen science platform in Slovakia.

Read more

What motivates you the most about citizen science?

I love the idea of strengthening the connection between the science and public – with academic scientists gaining or processing more data (and contact with citizens, getting to know their point of view and in the same time getting chance to show public what they feel is most important to understand), citizen scientists gaining knowledge and empowerment in solving problems they consider most important/pressing. In Slovak society there is quite strong social mistrust in science and I feel participatory projects with personal experience could help.

Seán Lynch

Founder OpenLitterMap
Geographer, Developer

Your involvement in citizen science

I started studying litter mapping in 2008 when I was introduced to GIS at University as I was inspired to combine my experience gaming with real-world data. After working as a divemaster in the tropics for 6 months I gained loads of experience with biodiversity, sustainable tourism and beach cleans. I returned home to Ireland to do a masters in GIS + Remote Sensing in 2013 to study coral reef mapping and plastic pollution. There, I was introduced to OpenStreetMap. Unable to find a similar platform for plastic/litter mapping, OpenLitterMap was born. I did a second masters in NUIG studying Coastal & Marine Environments where I reviewed all available litter mapping platforms, policy, and wrote the OpenLitterMap dissertation. After teaching myself how to code and building OpenLitterMap from scratch, I spent the last few years working as a software developer for various startups to gain the skills needed to continue developing citizen science independently because of the 100s of millions of tonnes of plastic rotting in the oceans. I got my first funding from Project Catalyst, a decentralised crypto funding instrument on Cardano to build Littercoin, the first token rewarded for the production of geographic information. 

Read more

What motivates you the most about citizen science?

Plastic pollution

Monika Maciuliene

She/her
Vilnius, Lithuania

Your involvement in citizen science

Head of Lithuanian Citizen Science Association (www.pilieciumokslas.lt). I’m also a researcher at Vilnius Tech and together with our team, we are involved in several projects focused on Citizen Science (e.g. INCENTIVE). In both of these roles, my job is to raise awareness about Citizen Science in Lithuania through the preparation of training materials, support resources and organization of events.

Read more

What motivates you the most about citizen science?

The openness part. Science seems exotic and hard to understand from the outside. By inviting citizens and other stakeholders in, we can show the good and fun side of science. 

Anna Verones

She/her
Berlin

Your involvement in citizen science

I heard about citizen science for the first time in the context of marine protection, as an emerging approach to raise awareness around climate topics and inspire collective actions.

In 2021, I led the development of the citizen science project Open Soil Atlas, an open source co-learning center, where participants are trained on how to test soil and make results available to the scientific community in the form of a high-resolution soil quality map. Based on the correlation between healthy soil and healthy communities, we wanted to increase soil literacy and promote soil conservation practices at the local scale.

I’m interested in citizen science as a tool for promoting and legitimating civic engagement and public participation in the definition of common strategies to face the crisis of our times and collectively design solutions. I work at the Federal Network for Civic Engagement in Germany (in German, Bundesnetzwerk Bürgerschaftliches Engagement) and I believe in collective action as the way to pursue fair and sustainable socio-ecological transformations.

Read more

What motivates you the most about citizen science?

I like to learn and share my knowledge with others, to inspire and be inspired, to co-create and feel involved in collective actions. In citizen science I find the best framework for that. Community and bottom-up research approaches empower citizens to get a voice in the public debate and shape the future of our societies. Citizen science is also fun and gives me hope for a better future.

Dr. Rhoda Schuling

Groningen, the Netherlands
Hanze University of Applied Sciences / Centre of Expertise Healthy Ageing

Your involvement in citizen science

Our Applied Sciences University is practice-oriented in both research and education. Therefore, it is ideally positioned in local and regional settings to work with Citizen Science: this is where our networks are. In recent years, it has become clear that to bring about necessary transitions in (thinking about) health care in particular, much more bottom-up innovation, i.e. innovation co-created with citizens, is needed.

To facilitate our teachers, researchers, students and external partners in the region, a small task force has been formed within the University. As postdoc researcher Citizen Science, I head this taskforce. I am responsible for research and educational strategy in Citizen Science, and number of individual Citizen Science research projects. I’m also involved in CS networks maintained with other Universities and health related RPOs, as well as the Citizen Science in Health workgroup from the European Citizen Science Association.

Read more

What motivates you the most about citizen science?

I come from fundamental research in the Health Sciences. Though I loved doing efficacy research, I was puzzled that a very basic question seemed to be irrelevant: “should medicine/intervention X prove to be effective, how will we make sure that it reaches the people we developed it for?” Perhaps for medication, this implementation question isn’t too hard: we have very efficient channels in our health care system. However, when it comes to interventions that are geared to prevention and/or lifestyle, i.e. the interventions that have become much more salient now that our health care system is proving to be untenable, it is obvious we should put our target group’s needs and individual context in the foreground. In fact, to truly have impact on wellbeing in terms of health as well as health literacy/agency, we should be developing intervention with the target group. Therefore, at our Centre of Expertise, we are advocates of the more co-creative level of Citizen Science in health.