Thank you for all the Citizen Science 2022!

As the year comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude for all the partnerships and support in 2022. A wide range of new exciting projects has helped to expand the platform for improving the impact and quality of Citizen Science Apps.

Our collaborations with stakeholders, institutions, and project partners from 5 continents enabled us to bring Citizen Science Apps from a broad spectrum of scientific fields and citizen engagement to life. The expertise and development resources contributed by our project partners in the last year made it possible to extend the Citizen Science App features quite extensively, from data quality & data validation tools to geospatial data recording, from user roles to communication features like user mentions and message boards for the in-App communities and more. These project contributions have been invaluable in helping us create meaningful experiences for users and to extend further what Citizen Science Apps can do.

A special Card for Citizen Science

As it has become a tradition, we have designed a special Holiday Card for you to express our gratitude. We hope that it brings a smile to your face and helps to spread some holiday cheer. Here you can find it in high-quality resolution:

‍Furthermore, we want to send a big thank you to the EU Horizon program and all consortium members in our active Horizon 2020 / Horizon Europe participation.

The projects of YouCount, IPM Popillia, and Minagris make it possible to develop innovation for Citizen Science Apps for everyone on SPOTTERON beyond the reach of national research grants, and we hope for more possibilities to participate in Horizon EU projects in the upcoming year. One of the bigger outcomes of these projects has already been rolled out for every App on the platform: the new Parental Consent System. Making it possible for the younger generation to participate in Citizen Science actively was an important step, and it will continue to be a door-opener for engaging young people in projects.

Besides new features for all project Apps on the platform, we have extended the SPOTTERON IT infrastructure with new web services and modern technologies for improved capabilities, performance, and software quality.

And then there was the ECSA Conference 2022 in Berlin - it was our great pleasure to meet so many actors and experts in the field of Citizen Science in October. Thanks to the European Citizen Science Association for organizing such a fantastic event! We have a short recap on our Blog here: This was the ECSA Citizen Science Conference 2022 in Berlin - see you all again at the next ECSA conference in 2024 in Vienna!

The next feature releases are already in the works, and we can't wait to see what the future holds for extended partnerships and new projects. With your support and collaboration, we will continue to make great strides in improving the reach and impact of Citizen Science and Public Engagement Apps.

We will take some time off to visit loved ones and recharge over the holidays. We will be back on the 9th of January, ready to tackle the new year with renewed energy and enthusiasm - see you on the other side!

- your SPOTTERON Team