In the Ibercivis Foundation we citizen science
WE PROMOTE CITIZEN SCIENCE
Ibercivis serves as a catalyst for the ideas, challenges and questions of citizens who, without being directly involved in academia, wish to implement their scientific initiatives using their time, skills and knowledge.
In addition, we work together with public administrations to design objectives and draw up roadmaps that incorporate citizen science in universities, research institutes, local institutions and the media, presenting it as a catalogue of tools and methodologies that bring citizens closer to the country’s scientific development.
We have facilitated the launch of dozens of scientific projects and put citizens in contact with academia and its researchers.
Creation of communities on citizen science projects in Europe
We trace communication strategies for the successful management of projects
We develop digital tools to bring science closer to the public
WE DO CITIZEN SCIENCE
Ibercivis has coordinated and participated in more than 80 citizen science projects, involving tens of thousands of participants in scientific activities.
We have contributed to monitoring the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink; we have sent scientific experiments to the stratosphere; we work with dozens of schools every year on scientific projects that encourage STEAM vocations among students by involving them in the entire research cycle.
We were pioneers in distributed computing projects in Spain.
We are currently working on projects that enable users and communities across Europe to carry out their own projects and experiments, to collect quality data and to study it in order to push the boundaries of our knowledge.
Biodiversity and Environment
Education and STEM
Fight against disinformation
Social Sciences and Humanities
We investigate
CITIZEN SCIENCE
Ibercivis Foundation studies the effects of the practice of citizen science among its participants, the research institutes that use it as a research methodology.
We study the motivations of participants in citizen science initiatives, we contribute to a better design of project classification, we design tools that measure the impact of citizen science in the social, political, scientific and educational fields.
In addition, our own citizen science projects produce scientific findings that are published in articles and reports.
The results of our research are used to develop tools that facilitate the presence of citizen science in more and more areas of our daily lives.
Studies on the Motivations to participate in citizen science projects
Classification of Methodologies and classes citizen science projects
HIGHLIGHTED PROJECTS
FOUNDATION News
What is citizen science?
Citizen science can be defined as a set of research methodologies in which any interested person can actively participate in one or more of the stages of the research cycle, according to their ever-dynamic capacities: contributing and/or analysing data, interpreting results, identifying research questions or posing hypotheses.
The areas in which citizen science is present are very diverse, as are the objects of study of science itself, and the possibilities for the participation of its practitioners are almost infinite.
Since 2011 Ibercivis has facilitated the implementation of...
About the foundation
Citizen science can be defined as a set of research methodologies in which any interested person can actively participate in one or more of the stages of the research cycle, according to their dynamic capacities: contributing and/or analysing data, interpreting results, identifying research questions or posing hypotheses. The areas and methodologies are very diverse, as are the possibilities for participation.
Ibercivis was established as a foundation in 2011, but its activity related to citizen science dates back to 2007, when the ZIVIS volunteer computing project was successfully promoted in the city of Zaragoza.
In 2008, Ibercivis was developed, the first Spanish project to create a large national virtual computer by means of volunteer computing, combining efforts in scientific dissemination and the creation of a research tool for the scientific community.
The success of this project led to the establishment of Ibercivis as a foundation for the promotion of citizen science in Spain.
The foundation’s current aims include the implementation, promotion and study of citizen science, both in Spain and in Europe. Based on these pillars, the foundation offers advisory services in the organisation and implementation of citizen science projects, together with guides and resources so that any person or organisation can set them up independently.
As an organisation dedicated to the promotion and study of citizen science, the foundation provides the projects in which it is involved with methodologies that facilitate their implementation, as well as resources related to the ethics of their development, the treatment of the data collected and their storage, and everything related to the informed consent of their participants.
In addition, we propose strategies for the assembly of communities around the projects, plans for their communication and dissemination and technological tools for the implementation of scientific experiments in which citizens participate in any of the phases of scientific development: from the approach of the study hypothesis to the taking of samples, including their analysis and validation together with teams and research institutes from all over Europe.
Ibercivis currently participates in national and European projects where citizen science methodologies are implemented.
The national projects that include citizen science experiments are usually carried out during the academic year and are aimed at students and teachers -for projects developed in the classroom-, as well as communities and citizens in general for citizen science and biodiversity projects, preservation of heritage, adaptation to climate change, the fight against misinformation…
In addition, the foundation coordinates pilot projects in various European cities, where their communities actively contribute by participating in the proposed experiments, collecting data to be analysed or raising questions about their environment to which they can provide answers through science.
Many of these projects, after their completion, are left in the hands of citizens who can replicate them in their own communities. To this end, the foundation lists the necessary tools and scientific protocols to be followed in order to obtain the expected results.
If you are starting from scratch, you can document yourself with some of our resources on how to develop a citizen science project. It can help you to learn more about methodologies, deadlines and set achievable goals. If you have more experience, you can apply for different funding calls for its implementation with a greater number of resources. In any case, you can write to info@ibercivis.es telling us about your proposal and we will try to guide you.
We publish the scientific reports with the results of the citizen science projects we coordinate, as well as the results of our research on citizen science. In addition, you can find out about the progress of the European projects in which we are involved through the deliverable documents that are periodically published by their consortia, both on their websites and in repositories such as Zenodo.
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