Accelerator-2024 - Impetus4cs - Impetus For Citizen Science Project

What is the Accelerator

The Accelerator is a planned and structured programme that includes training activities, mentoring and financial support for the Citizen Science Initiatives (CSIs) that are selected in the IMPETUS annual Open Calls.

The objective is to help the CSIs in delivering a seven-month citizen science project, maximising their scientific, social, economic, democratic, and environmental impacts towards the Sustainable Development Goals and the Green Deal targets.

It includes:

A two-week Bootcamp: Intensive training at the start of the accelerator on EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion), citizen engagement strategies, policy impact, communication strategies, quality data, ethics and impact assessment;
Online mentoring during the project execution provided by citizen science experts;
Specific training covering specific expressed needs on knowledge & skills;
“Aperitive sessions” to promote peer learning and networking within and between pilot cohorts, also creating bridges with external communities of interest.
Promotion via news on the IMPETUS website and on social media, as well as presenting opportunities at the IMPETUS conference and other related events;
Financial support of €20,000 (for kickstarting projects) or €10,000 (for sustaining projects)

The second edition of the IMPETUS Accelerator runs between June 2023 and January 2024.

The Bootcamp

The Bootcamp is an intensive online training at the beginning of the process that leads to the official start of the Accelerator Programme. It covers a diverse range of topics for CSIs to deepen their understanding of different aspects of citizen science and help them define a more inclusive and impactful project. It aims to get all CSIs together and establish a common ground.

The 2024 Citizen Science Initiatives, CSIs

Challenge #1: Sustainable Lifestyles

Schools Count!

Elke Franchois

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Mobility
Mentor: Yaela Golumbic

Schools Count! includes the child perspective in an inclusive and participatory approach to tackle sustainable mobility challenges in the City of Genk. Through citizen science and educational packages mobility experiments are deployed in the primary schools’ neighbourhood. The purpose is to facilitate the transformation of the child perspective into practical measures and strengthen the permanent implementation of sustainable mobility solutions in a school environment.

The Museum of Food Waste

Cristina Nava

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Alexandra Albert

What interventions can be co-created to prevent / minimise food waste in school canteens, recognising the importance of behaviour change in school students?

URBAN 500

Milena Ivkovic

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Mobility
Mentor: Carolina Dopico González

What do citizens experience when they walk 500 steps in their neighbourhood, and what changes would they make? Urban 500 project creates an experimental, open citizen science digital database on walkability conditions to transform car-dominated neighbourhoods and regenerate public spaces.

EcoVoce - Speak up!

Lucrina Stefanescu

Sustaing Grant
Topic: Waste
Mentor: Jacqueline Goldin

The EcoVoce project monitors environmental issues in Romania's Aries River basin, nestled in the Apuseni Mountains. Developed in collaboration with locals, the EcoVoce mobile app amplifies citizens' voices, empowering community action. Its name, meaning 'voice' in Romanian, underscores its goal: giving citizens a platform to address and resolve local societal challenges.

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Scoil-Aer: Citizen Science for Clean Air Routes to School

Ruaraidh Dobson

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Carolina Dopico González

Scoil-Aer is a citizen science project in Waterford, Ireland, that empowers young people to co-design and validate clean air walking, wheeling, and cycling routes around their schools. Through this project, students become active participants in improving air quality, reducing their exposure to pollution, and promoting sustainable travel habits in their communities.

Oeiras Experimenta: climate-smart crops for sustainable food production

Elisabete Brigadeiro

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Yaela Golumbic

Oeiras Experimenta Living Lab in Oeiras Municipality aims, through synergies between citizen scientists and ITQB NOVA researchers, to identify alternative climate-resilient crops for a more fair and sustainable food production, raising awareness on food security and climate change and restoring the historical agroecosystem of “Quinta de Cima do Marques de Pombal” in Oeiras.

We Are Students Tackling Environmental WASTE

Marta Gil Martinez

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Waste
Mentor: Ilídio André Costa

We're a group of researchers who are really concerned about the huge amount of waste that's being produced these days and the impact it's having on our beautiful planet. We want to make sure that the kids of today are aware of the importance of reducing waste and recycling it properly, because they'll be the leaders of tomorrow!

The School Food Transformation Project

Maria Neocleous Maliotou

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Patricia Barciela

RE-TASTY project aims to engage secondary school students in The Netherlands in re-thinking their school food system. By becoming citizen scientists themselves, they will use the Whole School Approach to research their school food system and propose actions to make it more sustainable and healthy.

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Stop Bike Theft

Jordi Honey-Roses

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Mobility
Mentor: Inês Navalhas

Stop Bike Theft raises awareness and gathers data on bicycle theft in Barcelona. Through local cooperation, a campaign and events, citizens are encouraged to report theft on the BiciZen citizen science platform, thus providing valuable information to the cycling community and the researchers about the current extent of bicycle theft.

Cook-tivating Biodiversity

Alberto Jimenez

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Fermín Serrano

Cook-tivating Biodiversity is focused on empowering our elders by gathering traditional knowledge of local cultivated seeds in Almócita (Spain). The social garden will be the main place were citizen scientists will cultivate and create an opened and shareable seed collection of wild and local varieties of plants to promote a more fair and sustainable food production.

Foodies

Diana Szanto

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Jacqueline Goldin

In Foodies young citizen scientists work to find out what is wrong with our treatment of food and what possibilities exist to make food production and consumption more sustainable and healthier. In 4 different parts of Hungary, five groups conduct research independently with qualitative methods, using participatory video for documentation.

UNIQUE. Universal Design Strategies for Equity in the Proximity City

Alba Ramírez Saiz

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Mobility
Mentor: Cristina Luís

The universal design measures in the new city models, such as the proximity city or the 15-minute city, have failed to listen to people with disability. This project aims to engage them in co-designing an update for the Proximity Flower, a participatory tool for proximity city actions.

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Layered City

Lovro Koncar-Gamulin

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Mobility
Mentor: Patrícia Tiago

We are building a socially conscious framework that integrates subjective community knowledge with existing urban data to reveal, inform and overcome contemporary mobility challenges. Our innovative mobility dashboard transforms citizen observations into real-time insights and actionable results, visualizing key mobility factors as interactive heatmaps. This approach fosters an inclusive, citizen-centered perspective for improving urban mobility.

Beyond recycling of e-waste

Fiona Dear

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Waste
Mentor: Patrícia Tiago

We recycle thousands of working devices every week. But reusing them instead could reduce waste, lower emissions and save households money. We’re investigating what reuse options are currently available at household waste and recycling centres and campaigning for policies that can help us move beyond recycling.

ChargeConnect: Mapping the Path to Smarter EV Charging

Ruxandra Miuti

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Mobility
Mentor: Carolina Dopico González

ChargeConnect is a pioneering project that leverages citizen science to improve electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. By engaging EV owners and stakeholders, the project collects and analyses data on charging station usability and interoperability, informing industry and policymakers to enhance accessibility, promote standardisation, and support sustainable transportation solutions.

Vyakulani Africa - mapping the African food legacy in Belgium

Maureen Duru

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Cristina Luís

Vyakulani Africa project focuses on African food consumption in Belgium; the evolution of the African diaspora's foodways and its acceptance by the wider public.

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SOLIVEO

Mehmet Aysan

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Fermín Serrano

The SOLIVEO project seeks to enhance sustainable olive oil production in Bozdoğan, Türkiye, by merging traditional practices with modern scientific techniques. This project aims to support economic development, environmental sustainability, and social empowerment by engaging local farmers and students as citizen scientists through comprehensive workshops and training sessions. Project outputs will be shared through digital platforms so that they can be accessed by large audiences.

Wild Harvest: Preserving Traditional Knowledge in Lesvos

Konstantinos Tsiompanos

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Jacqueline Goldin

The long relationship that islanders have with the local ecosystems is something that is going to decline, because of global trade and the new lifestyle that is followed. The project is focused on recording the knowledge about wild foraging in Lesvos Island, mainly from elderly people who have used nature in their cuisine and medicine.

Wellbeing Blitz

Maria Vicente

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Food
Mentor: Karen Soacha

The Wellbeing Blitz wants to provoke a transformation towards healthier and more just food environments through the creation of citizen-generated data that reflect people's food relations within their neighbourhoods and the availability of healthy options, as well as the neighbourhood dietary patterns and health status.

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Challenge #2: Justice and Equity

Citizen science for accessible and affordable health screening

Nicholas Cauwenberghs

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Ilídio André Costa

Can citizens perform health checks as reliably as doctors? To find out, we will train citizens to perform standard health checks, determine the feasibility and accuracy of their measurements and gather their experiences to improve the training and screening. If successful, we may reach a large-scale, low-cost way of screening!

Nergal - an epidemiology citizen science game for people with visual impairments

Amber Griffiths

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Neal Reeves

A collaboration between a charity supporting people with visual impairments, a non-profit specialising in citizen science and participatory research, and epidemiology researchers, to co-design and build a sound-based version of a citizen science game to understand how social decisions change how diseases spread in communities.

Thermo-Staat

Judith Veenkamp

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Ilídio André Costa

As heatwaves intensify in the Netherlands, Thermo-Staat steps in with a new citizen science approach. Unlike traditional research, it empowers residents to co-create knowledge and drive real change. The project is conducted by a collaboration of residents, scientists and journalists. It enables citizen scientists to share sensor data, report on the impact of heat stress, and discuss ways to reduce its effects.

Map4Rec

Ekaterina Egorova

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Rachel Pateman

We are building the largest citizen science sensor network in Europe, enabled by a ground-breaking tool designed to capture the real-life experiences of diverse people. The purpose is to make democracy more inclusive and look for real solutions to complex problems.

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PAIR - Parkinson’s Intergenerational Care

Ariadna Laguna

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Patricia Barciela

PAIR is a co-created project with Parkinson’s patients and Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) researchers. An Intergenerational Service and Learning (SaL) pilot program with high-school students and Parkinson’s patients has been designed to provide data and analyze whether intergenerational care is effective to improve disease outcome and patients wellbeing. Project also focuses on the benefits and impacts youngsters will have towards positive attitudes, life behaviors, confidence, knowledge of Parkinson Disease, and competences in science and research.

Luna - the experiential landscape of a menstrual cycle

Barbi Seme

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Aleksandra Berditchevskaia

Project Luna explores the lived experiences of menstrual cycles using Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM). We engage citizen scientists to track their daily experiences via a mobile app. The aim is to better understand the experiential dynamics throughout the cycle, deepen self-knowledge, and advocate for supportive environments and policies.

SIREN (Saving Italian hydRological mEasuremeNts)

Paola Mazzoglio

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Bruna Gumiero

SIREN (Saving Italian hydRological mEasuremeNts) is a citizen science project about the recovery of historical series of daily flows of Italian rivers acquired during the 20th century. As citizen scientists actively participate in the digitization, their awareness of environmental change is raised, and the dataset is returned to the community.

Obstetric Coevolution

Irene Lapuente Aguilar

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Antonella Passani

Obstetric Coevolution (OBCOE) is a citizen science project looking to co-evolve obstetric practices to enhance the birthing experience by answering the question of how obstetric practices affect mothers’ mental health. We have run five co-creation workshops and a massive survey. Now we are working on the co-created proposals.

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SCience For Inclusion

Nicole Salvatori

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Fermín Serrano

The SCI-FI (SCIence For Inclusion) project strives to cultivate a sustainable community focused on environmental protection and social inclusion. By adopting sustainable agricultural practices and leveraging digital transformation and precision agriculture technologies, it aims to minimize environmental impact while promoting inclusion of vulnerable citizens.

CARPINO CARpaneda for Participation, INclusion and Observation of biodiversity change

Gloria Marini

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Jane Prophet

In a strip of countryside between the outskirts of Vicenza (Veneto, Italy) and the industrial areas, the CARPINO project wants to involve the citizens in a 'scientific camp' to analyse biodiversity, an oral history school and art workshops to experience these places with new meanings and suggestions.

Heat WatchErs in ACTion

Mar Satorras

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Inês Navalhas

This project uses citizen science to understand and disseminate the urban impacts of climate change, particularly regarding indoor heat, and to foster inclusive resilience by engaging and empowering children and parents from vulnerable areas of the Barcelona metropolis.

Reach Out Right: Empowering Youth Mental Wellbeing

Micaela Santilli

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Stefanie Schuerz

The behavioral science project Reach Out Right provides insights into the dynamics behind mental health support-seeking of youth and connects various stakeholders to foster interdisciplinary cooperation. With professional stakeholders, citizen scientists in the Netherlands will build mental resilience.

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New Model of Care for Endometriosis - Phase 2

Anne-Sophie Gresle

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Jane Prophet

The Patient Experience Observatory at Hospital Clinic Barcelona in collaboration with the Gynaecology Department is embarking on a citizen science initiative aimed at developing an innovative care model for women receiving treatment for endometriosis at the hospital.

Voice of the Cavaleiro

Jeremy Auerbach

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Louise Francis

VoCa aims to pilot a participatory data collection of the occupational and urban hazards facing delivery bicycle riders for increased workers’ rights and work protections, changes to urban built environment, and empower migrant, refugee, and marginalised communities.

Helping Parents Minds

Jana Volkert

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Fermín Serrano

A mentalization-based mobile game prototype for parents from socially disadvantaged backgrounds will be developed in a co-design process to help reduce parental stress. The game prototype aims to train the ability of parents to think about their children’s minds and strengthen their parent-child relationship. Parents from different backgrounds will be recruited from urban and surrounding areas around Ulm (Baden-Württemberg, Germany).

Living soils lab

Johanna Musch

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Patricia Barciela

The Living soils lab engages local communities in assessing urban soils health with a focus on desealed artificial ground and planted areas aiming to restore ecosystem services and enhance community health and climate resilience in Paris banlieues.

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BUGS (Benefits of Urban Green Spaces)

Irina Spacova

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Ilídio André Costa

BUGS (Benefits of Urban Green Spaces) is a citizen science project on enhancing the health benefits of urban green spaces. Through a study with citizen participation, we want to understand how the microorganisms in urban parks can improve human health. Join us in transforming city parks into vibrant, healthy spaces accessible for all!

Using past to secure future: tackling small town brain drain through industrial heritage regeneration

Petr Witz

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Mobility
Mentor: Ilídio André Costa

Local secondary schools, activists and policy makers team up with Petr Witz of Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University and his small team to explore together root causes of brain drain and use old industrial heritage to give young people from disadvantaged towns a vocational perspective of the future.

BeeCode Berlin

Silvia Carvalho

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Sasha Woods

BeeCode explores Berlin's bee genetic diversity to promote sustainable beekeeping practices. We engage students, beekeepers, and gardeners to be part of the scientific process and our mobile lab makes DNA sequencing accessible, especially for disadvantaged students. The resulting data will support public discussions and policies, fostering community ties and educational opportunities.

XENOPIA

Isabel Farina

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Jacqueline Goldin

Xenopia is a research-design project aimed at prototyping a domestic hormones Beta Hcg test as a tool to address reproductive justice and the right to access abortion. With an inter-species perspective, we will develop a tool and participatory workshops as a political act of empowerment and a concrete response to reproductive justice.

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Deep Time – Collective Intelligence for Nature Recovery

Brendon Wilkins

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Karen Soacha

Deep Time is a collaborative mapping platform helping communities and landowners prepare for the immense challenges posed by climate change impacts and Net Zero targets by mapping archaeology features from Earth Observation data.

Dear Green Place: Promoting wellbeing in young people with Our Outdoors

Sammy Mason

Sustaining Grant
Topic: Health
Mentor: Carolina Dopico González

Dear Green Place aims to engage more young people in the citizen science project Our Outdoors to contribute data, formulate ideas and create artworks to provide insights on developing green spaces that maximise wellbeing benefits. The project takes place in the area of Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland.

RIVER PRO. Enhancing river proactive conservation

Medea Ferrigno

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Jacqueline Goldin

The RIVER PRO project in Sicily's Simeto River Valley is designed to empower local communities through Citizen Science. By collecting data on water quality and river usage and fostering collaboration among citizens, businesses, and institutions, the project aims to promote a more collaborative management of the River, addressing climate challenges.

Caomhnú

Gesche Kindermann

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Jane Prophet

Caomhnú connects rural Irish citizen science participants and practitioners through stories of climate change and action. Through storytelling we aim to share local climate resilience movements more broadly and empower individuals and communities to identify themes and connections for greater impact.

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3-30-300 ATHENS

Dagny Rewera

Kickstarting Grant
Topic: Climate
Mentor: Louise Francis

In collaboration with Kypseli residents, the ‘3-30-300 ATHENS’ project assesses the area’s urban composition against the 3-30-300 rule. Through engagement and green interventions, it maps the green topology, identifies development needs, raises awareness, and empowers citizens to transform Athens into a green city.

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Challenge #3: Citizen Science For and With Communities

EuroSense

Lucia Nass

Kickstarting Grant
Mentor: Carolina Dopico González

Citizen social science for the benefit of the Deaf community

Katerina Zourou

Kickstarting Grant
Mentor: Stefanie Schuerz

Acting4DHH, is a project by the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) community of Thessaloniki, Greece, aiming to improve social wellbeing through citizen social science. The project envisages to foster community-driven inclusion and accessibility by strengthening DHH-Hearing collaboration as a means of awareness raising, advocacy and empowerment.

Antiquake Risk Hunter Community

Yelda Ademoğlu Gülkılık

Kickstarting Grant
Mentor: Stefanie Schuerz

The Antiquake project enhances community resilience to earthquakes through citizen science and engagement, empowering a neighbourhood to develop detailed and tailored risk maps and reduction plans. It promotes awareness, fosters stakeholder collaboration, and leverages local knowledge and resources to prepare for and respond effectively to the unavoidable Istanbul earthquake.

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The Mentor Panel

The Mentor Panel consists of 17 external experts and 4 IMPETUS experts that will work together with the CSIs mentees throughout the six months to support and guide them to develop their project properly. This implies regular one-to-one meetings and advice on thematic matters related to each CSI.

Margarita Angelidou

Urban Policy and Planning

I'd love to help citizen science projects advancing sustainable urban development!

Isabelle Bonhoure

Coordinator and Researcher

Let's keep Citizen Science growing and targeting social issues, from the perspective of the people that share them!

Ilídio André Costa

Teacher / Researcher / Citizen Science Project Manager

The science where it belongs

Carolina Dopico Gonzales

MEng, PhD, CEO, Sustainability Consultant

Mentoring citizen science initiatives within the IMPETUS project, integrating science and artistic expression in participatory processes

Louise Francis

Co-founder and Managing Director of Mapping for Change

Democratising the way in which science is done, with communities at the heart and socieltal challenges at the forefront

Jacqueline Goldin

Extra-ordinary Associate Professor of Anthropology and Water Sciences

Passionate about citizen science - taking science right out of libraries and laboratories into life

Yaela Golumbic

Science Communication Researcher

Citizen science makes science more accessible and relevant to peoples' day-to-day lives

Christiane Grill

Senior Program Manager Involvement at the Open Innovation in Science Center (Austria)

Actively involving citizens in science increases the quality of research and brings science and society closer together

Bruna Gumiero

River Ecologist, Adjunct Professor of Ecology at the University of Bologna

One of my challenges in the CS projects I coordinate will be to make CS results count more in sustainable land management decisions

Cristina Luis

Researcher

Dialogue, collaboration and engagement; three essential keywords in citizen science!

Inès Navalhas

Researcher

To know more about citizen science projects in Europe is a great opportunity. IMPETUS is the way!!

Rachel Paterman

Research Fellow

It is a way for everyone to understand the world around them.

Karen Soacha

Specialist in Knowledge management | Governance | Citizen science |

Collaborative efforts to expand citizen science are more than needed to address our challenging times. IMPETUS is a great way to do it!

Stefànie Schuerz

Sociology, Science and Technology Studies Researcher and Project Manager

We can only achieve profound transformative change through science if we build meaningful collaborations between science, policy and society.

Patrícia Tiago

Researcher in Citizen Science and Biodiversity Monitoring

Citizen science empowers ordinary individuals to join forces, unleashing the collective power to drive meaningful change and scientific discovery.

Savita Willmott

Chief Executive, The Natural History Consortium

I've been involved in citizen science for over 15 years and I'm still just as excited about the opportunities for international collaboration and new thinking in the field.

Sasha Woods

Researcher for Impact and Innovation

I'm excited to help make citizen-science projects more impactful!

Fermín Serrano

citizen science + policies + society + technologies + sustainability + arts

Let's push citizen science forward

Jane Prophet

Project Leader for Interdisciplinary Research on Arts-Informed approaches to Health and Wellbeing

Public engagement via citizen science can transform lives and reduce health disparities

Patricia Barciela

Museos Científicos Coruneses

Alexandra Albert

IMPETUS Policy Engagement

Only through doing things together, via citizen science, can we tackle some of the biggest social issues we face today.

Antonella Passani

IMPETUS Impact Coordinator

Passionate about CS, provides support for assessing and maximizing positive impacts and increase its diversity of people, disciplines and topics.

Aleksandra Berditchevskaia

IMPETUS Principal Researcher

Neal Reeves

IMPETUS Research Assistant

Training and Aperitives

The Accelerator Training Sessions consist of 5 training courses of 1.5 hours each that will cover the needs expressed by the CSIs through a consultation process. These sessions will be diverse and might cover topics such as storytelling, addressing industry or translating data into actionable plans.

The Accelerator Aperitives are peer-learning and networking sessions of 1,5 hours each with the wider CS community. We will run 2 Aperitives during the programme.

Impact Assessment

Impact assessment is a key aspect of ensuring progress, validating our methods and approaches, and proving evidence. Therefore, we are developing a scheme that will be shared here in a timely manner.

Check out the breakdown of the impact of our 2023 IMPETUS Accelerator call for Citizen Science Projects.

View the Impact of our 2023 CSIs here