European Union Price for Citizen Science

IMPETUS, a Europe-wide project to promote Citizen Science, recently awarded Citizen Science projects and published the selected award winners of the European Union Price for Citizen Science. Among them are two Citizen Science Apps running on the SPOTTERON App platform: Roadkill by the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU Vienna) and YouCount - Youth Citizen Science, in which we are an active partner in the project consortium of this Horizon 2020 / Horizon Europe funded project. Hurray! 

 
First Open Call by IMPETUS

The very first IMPETUS Open Call started on 10 January 2023 and ended on 13 March 2023. The Award Ceremony is set to be celebrated in September 2023 at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz / Austria. Now, the winners have recently been announced at the Press Event for the European Union Prize for Citizen Science:

 IMPETUS will now award prizes and funding for newly launched as well as established Citizen Science projects every year until 2025. Already this time, there were 336 submissions for the European Union Prize for Citizen Science – in addition to the three main prizes, 27 projects were selected for an "Honorary Mention" – including Roadkill and YouCount.

 
IMPETUS Award Criteria

IMPETUS consists of a team including King's College London, Ars Electronica, EUSEA, NESTA, Science for Change, T6 and Zabala Innovation Consulting. They evaluate the following criteria in honoring projects:

–  Scientific Quality

– Social Quality & Policy Impact

–  Sustainable Development Goals & Green Deal

–  Communication & Engagement

–  Innovation & Creativity

–  Contribution to local, national, and European policy development

–  Diversity & Collaboration

–  European Dimension 

Honorary Mention of Roadkill

With the involvement of citizens, Roadkill aims to document road accidents involving vertebrates in Austria and thus create an overview of where and when which animals are run over and what reasons might be responsible. With the research and measurement of, for example, certain animal migrations, protective precautions could be taken in the future. The project involves citizens on multiple levels, from data collection to in-App species identification to research questions via the project website. Find out more about this project here. 

 Honorary Mention of YouCount - Youth Citizen Science

The Horizon project aims to engage young people across nine European countries as young citizen scientists, encouraging their contributions to knowledge about participation in society. To comprehend the perspectives of young individuals and their diverse positions, it is essential to identify the environments where they feel accepted and included, as well as those situations and places where they feel excluded and marginalized. 

With the applied methodology of Social Citizen Science, YouCount focuses on social inclusion, understood as equal opportunities for young people to participate in society, and sheds light on social participation, connectedness and social belonging, and citizenship. Find out more about this project here.

SPOTTERON's technology for Citizen Science Apps

We are honored that projects built on SPOTTERON's Citizen Science App technology have convinced the jury twice in the award criteria.

It is SPOTTERON's vision to foster motivation, reach, and user activity of Citizen Science and change the way we look at our environment and society. In the time of biodiversity loss, climate crisis and political changes, we need to better interlock science and society.

Do you have a Citizen Science project and consider the team of SPOTTERON to develop your website and App? Let's connect!