On Monday 28 September 2026, Scivil will organise the Citizen Science Networking Day at Aeropolis, near Schaerbeek railway station in Brussels. This year's edition is organised in collaboration with Beweging.net, VITO and the VUB Citizen Science Contact Point. Expect an inspiring keynote, engaging presentations, in-depth workshops and a networking lunch.

You can already explore the preliminary programme on our website. Be sure to keep an eye on the event page, as many more speakers and workshops will be added in the coming weeks. Already convinced? Registrations are now open!

Two months after the Night of amai!, we can finally share the good news: amai! will continue, in a renewed format. As a project of Scivil and the Knowledge Centre Data & Society, amai! will remain committed to actively involving citizens in the development of artificial intelligence in Flanders. In the coming period, amai! will focus on two main strands. On the one hand, there will be a new call to strenghten citizen participation in AI innovation (more on this soon).

On the other hand, amai! will also be present at the technology and innovation festival FTI, where a large citizen panel will be organised. For this, we are still looking for AI solutions or services in development that have a direct impact on citizens. During the festival, citizens will engage with these innovations so that developers can gain valuable insights into barriers and success factors. Interested? Visit this page (in Dutch) for more information.

The first Belgian edition of Plane Tree Check was an immediate success, with more than 420 bark samples submitted from across the country. For this project, Scivil, the University of Antwerp, UCLouvain and the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium are collaborating to map particulate air pollution using plane tree bark. The results of the study will be published on the Plane Tree Check website.

During Science, Shared, students from KU Leuven presented their science communication projects. Four teams collaborated with Scivil on a range of ideas, including a rebranding campain for amai!, a youth version of the Citizen Science Test, an interactive mag for Citizens4Water and a contest for Maarallee!.

Do you have an initial idea for applying citizen science within your research? Then sign up for the workshop ‘Starting with Citizen Science’ on 3 June in Leuven, and work together with Scivil to further develop your concept into a first concrete project plan. You do not need to have a fully developed idea yet: during the workshop, you will receive practical guidance, feedback and inspiration to help shape your project further.

The Oriental fruit fly enters Belgium through the import of infected tropical fruit and causes significant damage to crops. The project Pestfly Patrol aims to maps this invasive species. Sign up by 15 May, receive and install an observation kit, submit your observatins via the iNaturalist app, and help scientists monitor these flies.

On 21 May, the ninth edition of the annual traffic count Straatvinken will take place. Citizens across Flanders are invited to count traffic in their street from 5 pm to 6 pm that day. Register your counting location today, take part, and help create safer and more liveable neighbourhoods.

The citizen science project De Patrijzen has received the Olbrechts Prize 2025-2026, an important recognition within antropology. The project was honoured for its work on biological fatherhood, family history and citizen science. Prof. Maarten Larmuseau, who together with Brecht Liefsoens is the driving force behind De Patrijzen, also spoke with Scivil for our monthly interview, further along in this newsletter.

Waterland vzw has won the BeGeo Award for Collaboration and Partnerships with their citizen science project Watermonsters. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of citizens, researchers and public authorities, the project mapped water quality across Flanders and Brussels in unprecedented detail.

Within the working group on national platforms of the European Citizen Science Association, Scivil contributed to a new publication on managing citizen science networks and platforms. The report maps shared challenges and practices related to funding, organisation, communication and collaboration, and brings together insights from both emerging and established networks across different countries. Annelies Duerinckx also contributed to the publication on behalf of Scivil.

The Citizen Science Competency Framework developed by ECS Academy aims to better define the skills, knowledge, attitudes and values of citizen science professionals and researchers. Through three online surveys, you can still provide feedback on the clarity and usability of the framework (Survey Clarity & Usability), which competencies should be included (Survey Validation), and how the framework is visually presented (Survey Common Foundations & Visualisation). Share your feedback before 18 May.

Researchers from LMU Munich, Leibniz Institute for Psychology, TU Braunschweig, and Museum für Naturkunde Berlin are conducting a European study on the relationship between participation in citizen science and trust in science. The research is being carried out through a short online survey.

SciStarter organises the Citizen Science Month every April, and this year’s edition became a record-breaking success. The goal was to collect 2.5 million registered citizen science actions, but the campaign ultimately reached more than 4.7 million actions. The campaign resultats are now available.

Each month, Scivil interviews someone about their experience with citizen science. This month, we spoke with Prof. Maarten Larmuseau on De Patrijzen ("The Partridges"), which aims to conduct genealogical and genetic research into ‘partridge children’, or children whose birth certificates did not initially name a father but who were later recognised by a man.

Strategic Communication for Participatory Science Practitioners is a five-week online course developed by the American organisation AAPS – American Association for Participatory Science, taking place between 17 April and 22 May.

On 13 May 2026, RVO-Society will conclude its anniversary year celebrating its 25th anniversary with Innovation for Tomorrow, an inspiring event centred on innovation, connection and forward-looking thinking. This event will be held in Dutch only.

The European Science Engagement Conference 2026 will take place in Luxembourg from 19 to 21 May 2026, under the theme “In Other Words and Other Worlds”.

The 2026 Conference for Advancing the Participatory Sciences will take place online from 26 to 29 May 2026.

On 3 June, Scivil is once again organising the workshop ‘Starting with citizen science’ for anyone who wants to get started with their own project idea. 

From 7 to 12 June 2026, the University of Zurich is organising the fifth edition of the Citizen Science Summer School.

The 11th edition of the Living Knowledge Conference will take place in Gdańsk, Poland, from 7 to 10 July 2026. The theme is research and solidarity.

On 28 September 2026, Scivil's next Citizen Science Networking Day will take place. The event will be held at Aeropolis in Brussels, near Schaerbeek station. This year, Scivil is organising the Networking Day in collaboration with Beweging.net, VITO and VUB.

The PCST Berlin Symposium 2026, “Building Knowledge Together: Citizen Science, Communication, and Trust”, will take place on 5 and 6 October 2026.

CARN Conference 2026: Towards a just and humane society is an international conference that will take place on 5-7 November in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

The Citizen Science 4 Health Conference 2027 will take place from 19 to 21 April 2027 in Odense, Denmark.