On May 31, Scivil organized three workshops on common challenges in citizen science. After introductory presentations by Luiza Mitrache (AfricaMuseum & Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) and Thomas Van Oppens (Alderman of IT policy at the City of Leuven), the 40 participants were divided into three breakout sessions on different subtopics of citizen science:  

• citizen science in museums, archives and libraries
• citizen science and the role of local governments
• supporting citizen science in your organization

Read the full report of the workshop on our website.

In addition to our own Common Challenges workshops, the past few months were very busy in terms of events. There was lots of attention for citizen science in Flanders! The FLAMES network (Training Network for Methodology and Statistics) organized a theme day on citizen science, citizen science was included as part of the networking day of Flanders Research Data Network (FRDN) and there was a session on citizen science at Pint of Science in Leuven. Many inspiring moments to share, learn and broaden our network!

How do you come up with a societally relevant idea for AI? And how do you find the right people to make your idea a reality? The past weeks, amai! organized co-creation sessions at various locations in Flanders where many ideas of citizens for AI were further sharpened. Companies, civil society organizations and knowledge institutions sat around the table and discussed together how AI can make a difference. 

Curious about the results of these sessions? Read here which AI ideas the participants explored at the different sessions! 

Since 2021, the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM) has participated in the European COMPAIR project, which collects data on traffic flows and air quality through citizen science. A pilot project is currently running in Herzele, aiming to improve traffic flow and air quality around a school. In the project, VMM helps local governments to choose air quality sensors and citizens to use the sensor to easily measure the air quality in their neighborhood.

On March 21, the winner of the Flemish Road Safety Prize 2023 was chosen and announced. The annual prize honors initiatives that make a concrete contribution to traffic safety in Flanders through their innovative approach and was this year awarded to a citizen science project! The participants of the Flemish Traffic Safety Congress 2023 crowned the 'Weg van 't school' project as the final winner! This project by Brightlab and Cera combines citizen science and STEM education (Science - Technology - Engineering - Mathematics).

Congrats!

'Waste Watchers' is a new citizen science project initiated by VITO and River Cleanup that will enable citizens to easily map riverbank litter by using drones. With these aerial images an AI system can be trained to automatically recognize litter. And this will allow organizations to optimize clean-up interventions and thus structurally tackle litter in Flanders. Waste Watchers started in January 2023 and will run for 1 year.  The project is funded by the amai! project call. 

On June 30th, EnviroCitizen is hosting an interdisciplinary conference at Norway House in Brussels to discuss the potential of ornithological citizen science in fostering environmental citizenship. The main aim of the conference is to share the project's findings concerning the past, present and future of birding as a way of caring for and about the natural world. Registration via this link!

Save the date! YouCount organizes its final conference in Brussels and online from 4 to 5 December. The first day will focus on how to conduct hands on citizen social science with young people and thus especially relevant for practitioners. The second full conference day will focus on results and implications for policymaking. More information will be on their website soon!