Citizen science innovation, a major player of the future

IMPETUS is a new Horizon Europe project that will support and give recognition to citizen science innovation in Europe. Coordinated by Zabala Innovation, seven partners from four European countries will work creatively over the next four years to meet all its objectives.

IMPETUS will pay special attention to recognising the role of Citizen Science in addressing the biggest challenges of our time, so there will be a strong focus on the consideration of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Green Deal.

Through an energetic approach, the team will organise three open calls that will launch citizen science initiatives with expected impacts on volunteer engagement, equity, diversity and inclusion, openness, and data quality.

Another highlight of the IMPETUS approach is the creation of an accelerator, which will provide funded citizen science initiatives with an integrated programme of support, training, mentoring, and resources. The accelerator will facilitate peer-to-peer learning, enable citizen science initiatives to contribute to the SDGs and DG targets and establish connections with quadruple helix stakeholders.

The launch of an EU Citizen Science Prize, awarded to citizen science initiatives for outstanding achievements, will allow them to continue and expand their work and showcase it to a wider audience. Three categories of prizes will be awarded over three years: outstanding achievements, diversity, and innovative grassroots projects.

Within this supportive landscape, IMPETUS aims to shape EU policy in and with citizen science, through horizon scanning, anticipatory policy, and action research, informing policy briefs, webinars, and workshops with key policy stakeholders. The aim is to foster more data on the information society to inform evidence-based policy and identify future directions for information society policy.

More about citizen science innovation

The European Commission shares a broad definition, according to which citizen science “encompasses a range of levels of engagement: from being better informed about science, to participating in the scientific process itself by observing, collecting or processing data”.

Citizen science is indeed one of the most interesting participatory approaches that have been developed in the field of public engagement. It is the approach that puts the practice of science itself in the spotlight. For more information and a wealth of examples or ongoing projects that you too can contribute to, explore the European Citizen Science Platform.