The Winners of the 2024 EU Prize for Citizen Science!

The Grand Prize winner this year is the INCREASE project. Its main goals include generating phenotypic data for over 1,000 bean plant genetic resources (PGR) lines in different European environments where citizen scientists help decentralized conservation and enhance agrobiodiversity. This project demonstrates outstanding work on genetic diversity and adaptation within common bean cultivars by integrating DNA sequencing with the analysis of phenotypic data.

With its strong scientific foundation, this project exemplifies excellence in research that embraces Citizen Science. To achieve its goals, it will engage many citizens through a dedicated application for data collection and seed exchange—5,000 participants of different backgrounds, ages, and genders all across Europe are participating in the 2024 campaign.

The INCREASE project raises awareness of agrobiodiversity and nutrition. It educates participants and policymakers on sustainable agri-food production and consumption. Legumes play a crucial role in issues such as soil health and climate resilience in the face of food security and scarcity concerns.

The project has implemented a participatory research model with various levels of engagement tailored to accommodate participants’ diverse levels of expertise. This approach enables feedback collection, support provision, and information dissemination to ensure sustainable citizen engagement. The inclusion of artificial intelligence for image analysis and the implementation of the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA) allows the compliance of international regulations for testing this innovative decentralized conservation approach. Its extensive cooperation across countries, the involvement of citizens from different regions, and engagement with regional platforms emphasize its European dimension and importance. Looking ahead, the jury expects this award to support the further development and innovation of the project, which subscribes to the ethos of empowering communities through decentralized seed storage, enabling them to regain control of their agricultural heritage. By democratizing access to seeds and knowledge, INCREASE challenges the dominance of large agrochemical corporations and promotes agricultural resilience, sustainability, and food sovereignty.

Finally, the project’s collaboration between citizens and major research centers is outstanding, and it exemplifies how top-tier centers are opening up their research processes for scientific excellence and social inclusion. In particular, members from local rural communities, including farmers who usually perceive themselves as outside the formal research process, contribute in a direct, meaningful and accessible way. Their traditional knowledge, passed down through generations, is a valuable agricultural research and development resource.

CoAct for mental health stood out to us as an excellent example of citizen social science, involving patients with lived experience of mental health issues, and their families, as co-researchers and co-producers of evidence on their experiences of social support networks in their communities. The project developed an open-source chatbot as a tool for autoethnography, demonstrating great innovation and creativity in using digital technology to support and foster inclusive community building.

These citizen researchers contributed their daily micro-stories to create a body of evidence that aims to shift the paradigm for mental health care away from a biomedical approach towards personalized medicine and a community-centered approach, showing that social support networks can be deployed in mental health care for recovery, well-being, crisis management, and to prevent isolation and exclusion. A small and dedicated core group of 32 citizen scientists participated throughout the entire life cycle of this co-creation project, from inception to data analysis and interpretation, and even participating in presenting the resultant policy recommendations, while a further 900 citizens used the chatbot to engage with the research.

This project allows citizens to play an active role in research that directly impacts their lives and harnesses the power of technology to include marginalized voices as active participants in the transformation of mental health care. Technology in this case facilitates the participation of citizens in developing a personalized approach to healthcare and medicine.

Overall the CoAct project fosters an open and inclusive civil society by empowering their community to critically engage with digital technologies—a worthy winner of the 2024 Digital Communities award.

SeaPaCS explores the consequences of marine plastic pollution on local biodiversity via a participatory Citizen Science process in the coastal city of Anzio, Italy. It engages more than 250 fishermen, North African migrants, school children, teachers, environmental NGOs, marine lawyers, sailors, and divers in co-producing knowledge about the health of the Mediterranean Sea, contributing to scientific fields like oceanography, cultural geography, and marine chemistry. In doing so, the project demonstrates excellence in engaging a diverse range of stakeholders and innovating transdisciplinary collaboration models between them, pushing the boundaries between civil society, citizens, and science.

SeaPaCS is especially exemplary for centering a community-led grassroots approach and for its attention to overcoming extractive tendencies in Citizen Science (citizens as “sensors”), by involving citizens beyond plastic sampling and data collection in activities such as plastisphere DNA analysis, documenting underwater ecological niches, creating photo and video exhibitions, testing DIY microplastic trawling instruments, and building marine plastic recycling stations. SeaPaCS hereby demonstrates how we can involve citizens not just in mapping problems but also in taking collective action towards restoring biodiversity and ecological resilience in European oceans, with attention to social inclusion and cultural diversity. For these reasons, we honour SeaPaCs with the Diversity & Collaboration Award.