Introduction. In 1879, the Cantabrian naturalist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, together with his daughter María, identified the polychrome bison and deer on the ceiling of the Altamira cave. A year later he published his hypothesis: that these paintings were the work of Palaeolithic humans. Far from being celebrated, his claim ran into scepticism, dismissal and accusations of fraud from the scientific establishment of the time. Sautuola’s story is one of rigorous research born of personal interest and direct observation of his local surroundings, which went on to transform world prehistory after decades of institutional resistance.

Rigour and curiosity outside the academy. Sautuola was not a professional archaeologist or a university professor, but a scholar and naturalist driven by a methodical interest in the heritage of his local area. After encountering the scientific developments of the time at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair, he began systematically exploring the Altamira cave. His work combined careful surveying of the ground, the collection of bone and stone remains, and the writing of his Breves apuntes (Brief Notes, 1880).

The weight of dogma and the bias of authority. The scientific community of the late 19th century, led by leading figures in French and Spanish prehistory, flatly rejected the authenticity of the Altamira paintings. Several factors fed into this rejection: the prevailing theoretical conviction that Palaeolithic humans lacked the intellectual and aesthetic capacity to create such complex art, experts’ fear of falling victim to fraud, and a bias against contributions from anyone outside the major academic institutions. Sautuola died in 1888 without ever seeing his work recognized.

Why is Sautuola’s case a landmark in citizen science?

• Generating knowledge outside institutions. The ability to observe, formulate valid hypotheses and document significant findings is not the sole preserve of academic institutions, nor does it require an official qualification.
• Observation free of preconceptions. A gaze unburdened by established theoretical frameworks — symbolized by the child’s attentiveness — can perceive evidence that entrenched frameworks tend to overlook or dismiss.
• A warning against scientific elitism. The case is a reminder of the risks of institutional authority bias: the validity of a finding depends on its empirical evidence, not on the status of the person presenting it.
• The value of rigour and correction. The scientific community’s later retraction underscores that knowledge truly advances when institutions are able to revisit their assumptions and acknowledge contributions from outside their ranks.

Did you know…? The renowned French prehistorian Emile Cartailhac — one of Sautuola’s harshest critics — published an article titled “Les cavernes ornées de dessins, La grotte d’Altamira (Espagne). Mea culpa d’un sceptique.” In it, he publicly apologized for having doubted the authenticity of Altamira and acknowledged the Cantabrian naturalist’s honesty and rigour. This happened in 1902, fourteen years after Sautuola’s death and twenty-two years after the discovery was first published.

REFERENCE

Sanz de Sautuola, M. (2004). Breves apuntes sobre algunos objetos prehistóricos de la provincia de Santander (J. A. Lasheras and C. de las Heras, Eds.; E. Botín, Foreword). Fundación Botín; Museo Nacional y Centro de Investigación de Altamira. https://www.cultura.gob.es/mnaltamira/dam/jcr:838c6f98-14e1-4a62-bd30-2e7c1f5b081b/altamira-fac-espanol.pdf (Original work published in 1880)

La entrada Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and the art of Altamira (1879–1880): defending Palaeolithic art from outside academia se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.

Introduction. Between 1845 and 1850, the sixteen volumes of the Geographical-Statistical-Historical Dictionary of Spain and its Overseas Possessions were published — one of the largest territorial information-gathering enterprises carried out in 19th-century Spain. Although the work bears the name of Pascual Madoz, behind it lay an extensive network of correspondents, local collaborators, and editorial workers. More than the result of a single author, the “Madoz” was a great collective infrastructure of knowledge.

A distributed network of collaborators. Madoz relied on more than a thousand collaborators and around twenty correspondents spread across Spain and overseas territories. From various locations they sent news, descriptions, and data about municipalities, villages, and regions. The information covered topics as diverse as terrain and climate, roads and communications, agriculture, industry, commerce, schools, population, taxation, and local history. This network made it possible to gather knowledge from very distant territories and turn it into an organized, searchable work. Viewed from today, it is reminiscent of distributed information-production systems now called crowdsourcing, although its operation was entirely centralized and hierarchical.

Local knowledge and editorial organization. Collaborators contributed close-to-the-ground information, but this did not go straight to the printer. The editorial team led by Madoz had to sort the responses, compare them with administrative documentation, and adapt them to a common structure. For more significant localities, entries followed up to twelve sections covering their location, population, territory, communications, production, industry, commerce, wealth, and history. The value of the project lay not only in the quantity of data collected, but also in the attempt to apply a common template to thousands of places. That standardization made it possible to compare territories and build a general picture of the country from numerous partial contributions.

A valuable source that must also be read critically. The Dictionary remains a reference for historians, geographers, demographers, and local heritage scholars. However, not all the information it contains is equally reliable. Some of its figures came from incomplete official records, and some informants may have concealed or altered data related to population, wealth, or taxes. Its importance does not eliminate these limitations: it serves as a reminder that every collective project needs common protocols, source traceability, and validation mechanisms.

Why is Madoz’s project a benchmark in citizen science?

• Collective intelligence. The work brought together thousands of local contributions to build a broad and detailed vision of the territory.
• Situated knowledge. Collaborators provided first-hand information about the places they inhabited, showing that knowledge is also produced outside academic and administrative centers.
• Coordination of contributions. A common structure made it possible to organize, compare, and convert local information into a collective work of national scope.
• Dissemination of knowledge. The Madoz gathered and circulated an enormous amount of territorial information, anticipating the current value of sharing and making collective knowledge accessible.
• An open tension. The project had centralized direction: Madoz selected the collaborators and controlled the editing. Even so, it anticipated current citizen science questions such as territorial participation, data validation, and recognition of contributors.

Did you know…?

Madoz himself rejected sole credit for the work: “I am not the author of the Dictionary,” he stated, acknowledging the work of his collaborators and the editorial office. Its sixteen volumes total more than eleven thousand pages and remain an essential source for studying mid-19th-century Spain. Its history also teaches that gathering large amounts of data is not enough: to build collective knowledge, it is necessary to know its origin, verify its quality, and make its possible limitations visible.

References

Camarero Bullón, C., and Fidalgo Hijano, C. (2007). Conocer el territorio y sus gentes: el Diccionario geográfico-histórico-estadístico de España y sus posesiones de Ultramar de Pascual Madoz. Biblioteca: estudio e investigación, 22, 9–32. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3082821

Madoz, P. (1845–1850). Diccionario geográfico-estadístico-histórico de España y sus posesiones de Ultramar (16 vols.). Madrid: Imprenta del Diccionario.

Martín García, J. J. (2020). «Ocultando cantidades de mucha consideración»: población y riqueza en el Diccionario de Madoz. El caso de Burgos (1845–1850). Alcores: Revista de Historia Contemporánea, 23, 105–136. https://doi.org/10.69791/rahc.37

La entrada The Dictionary of Pascual Madoz (1845–1850): A Territorial “Wikipedia” Built Before the Internet se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.

Introduction. In 1803, the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition departed from A Coruña with the aim of carrying the smallpox vaccine to overseas territories. The expedition, led by Francisco Javier Balmis, has been considered the first global vaccination campaign. But for the vaccine to arrive alive in America and the Philippines, knowing the technique was not enough; it had to be preserved during the voyage.

Care as scientific infrastructure. For the smallpox vaccine to reach America and the Philippines aboard the corvette María Pita, it had to be preserved “arm to arm” through a group of children from the Orphans’ Home of La Coruña. Balmis organized that vaccination chain; Zendal was responsible for sustaining its daily operation. Her work was not only welfare-based: it combined care, vigilance, coordination, and practical continuity so that the vaccine would arrive alive on the other side of the Atlantic.

A practical knowledge applied with rigor. Without a university degree —inaccessible to a woman of her background in the 18th century—, Zendal applied exceptional rigor in the observation, care, and maintenance of the vaccination chain. Her contribution did not come from academia, but from a daily practice made of attention, organization, and direct responsibility. It is a clear example of how practical knowledge, when exercised with rigor, can sustain a scientific enterprise of enormous scope.

Why is Isabel Zendal a reference in citizen science?

• Participation in scientific implementation. Zendal did not design or direct the expedition, but her work was essential to sustain the vaccination chain and make its application possible in other territories.
• Scientific and human infrastructure. The vaccine had to be preserved alive “arm to arm”. The success of the expedition depended on a human vaccination chain sustained by daily vigilance, coordination, and organization.
• Science of care. Her figure shows that maintaining, accompanying, observing, and guaranteeing that a process works is also part of scientific production. In this case, care was not external to science, but a condition for the health campaign to be carried out.
• An open tension. It was not citizen science in the current sense: there was no voluntary participation in the production of data or knowledge, but rather an institutionally organized health expedition. But it reminds us that many phases of science depend on people located outside the academic core, whose practical knowledge makes its application and impact possible.

Did you know…? Isabel Zendal has been recognized by the WHO as the first nurse on an international mission in history. The Balmis Expedition, considered the first global vaccination campaign, depended on a human chain formed by 22 vaccini-ferous children and the daily work of care, vigilance, and coordination of a woman located outside the academic field. Her story reminds us that science is also sustained by practical knowledge, logistics, and care.

REFERENCES

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. (2021). Un cómic y un libro monográfico rememoran la primera campaña global de vacunación: la Expedición de Balmis. https://www.csic.es/es/actualidad-del-csic/un-comic-y-un-libro-monografico-rememoran-la-primera-campana-global-de-vacunacion-la-expedicion-de-balmis

Ministerio de Cultura. (2023). Expedición Balmis (1800–1820). Registro Memoria del Mundo UNESCO. https://www.cultura.gob.es/cultura/archivos/difusion/registro-memoria-unesco/2023/expedicion-balmis.html

Real Academia de la Historia. (s. f.). Isabel Zendal Gómez. Historia Hispánica. https://historia-hispanica.rah.es/biografias/42380-isabel-zendal-gomez

Ramírez Martín, S. M. (2002). Única mujer participant en la Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna: Dña. Isabel Sendales y Gómez. En M. R. Sánchez Rubio, I. Testón Núñez, J. Alvaro Rubio y F. Serrano Mangas (Coords.), IX Congreso Internacional de Historia de América (Vol. 2, pp. 271–276). Editora Regional de Extremadura. Texto completo disponible en la Asociación Española de Americanistas: https://www.americanistas.es/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/09-76-Ma-Ramirez-Martin-Susana-Unica-mujer-participante-en-la-Real-Expedicion-Filantropica-de-la-vacuna-Dna.-Isabel-Sendales-y-Gomez-Congreso-de-Badajoz-2000.pdf

Agencia SINC. (2023). Isabel Zendal, enfermera pionera en misión internacional. https://www.agenciasinc.es/Visual/Ilustraciones/Isabel-Zendal-la-primera-enfermera-de-la-historia-en-mision-internacional

Illustration credits: Ramón Palmeral

La entrada Isabel Zendal (1773 – ?): The key piece of science’s first «human infrastructure» se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.

This monumental statistical work represented a methodological milestone: in order to thoroughly understand the geographical, demographic, and economic reality of its towns, the direct knowledge of local authorities and their neighbors was utilized. An early example of massive community-based data collection.

Introduction. Between 1574 and 1582, the monarchy of Philip II promoted an exceptional initiative to better understand its territories: the Topographical Relations, which managed to gather information from hundreds of localities in the central and southern peninsula. Although its scope was partial, its value was enormous because information was collected from hundreds of towns, many of them small, offering an image that was very difficult to obtain through other means. That initiative was born as a governance tool, but today it can also be seen as a historical antecedent of a central idea in citizen science: knowledge about a territory is not only produced from the center, but also by those who inhabit and build it.

The preserved corpus. According to documentary indexes, 8 manuscript volumes, 4,321 folios, and 721 Relations corresponding to 635 towns are preserved. Recent studies on biodiversity have worked with 637 Relations or with data from 628 localities, extracting thousands of records on plants, wild animals, crops, and livestock.

“Intelligent and curious” people. The responses were organized through specific questionnaires and instructions sent from the royal authority. In each locality, the councils had to appoint at least two “intelligent and curious” people, capable of providing “complete and true” information about the town and its land. Experienced neighbors, council members, witnesses, elderly people, scribes, and those who possessed memory, direct observation, or practical knowledge of the place participated. In many cases, scribes collected answers from people who did not know how to write.

An archive of local observations. The questionnaires asked about population, jurisdiction, local history, economy, roads, waters, forests, crops, livestock, climate, health, architecture, customs, religion, and natural resources. For this reason, the Relations are not just an administrative source: they are also an archive of local knowledge about the landscape, the economy, and daily life in the 16th century.

Why are the Topographical Relations a reference in citizen science?

• Situated knowledge. The relations show that those who inhabit a territory possess essential information to describe and understand it.
• Guided data collection. The letters, instructions, and questionnaires functioned as a common methodology to record information in an orderly manner.
• Local contributions. The work was built with data, observations, and descriptions coming from hundreds of localities.
• Scientific value. Almost 500 years later, the Relations are reused to study historical landscapes, crops, fauna, flora, and biodiversity.
• An open tension. While the initiative originated from the monarchy and had a governance purpose, it also reflects that an institution can request data from people distributed throughout the territory, and that those contributions can entail lasting scientific knowledge.

Did you know…? Based on the Topographical Relations, recent studies have gathered more than 7,300 records on plants, wild animals, crops, and livestock, with references to at least 225 species. Responses written almost five centuries ago still help today to reconstruct historical biodiversity.

REFERENCES

Clavero, M., & Revilla, E. (2014). Biodiversity data: Mine centuries-old citizen science. Nature, 510, 35. https://doi.org/10.1038/510035c

Campos y Fernández de Sevilla, F. J. (2003). Las Relaciones Topográficas de Felipe II: Índices, fuentes y bibliografía. Anuario Jurídico y Económico Escurialense, 36, 439–574. Ed. digital 2010: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes / BNE. https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/nd/ark:/59851/bmcs75z7

Sanz García, F., Pelacho, M., Woods, T., Fraisl, D., See, L., Haklay, M., & Arias, R. (2021). Finding what you need: A guide to citizen science guidelines. In K. Vohland, A. Land-Zandstra, L. Ceccaroni, R. Lemmens, J. Perelló, M. Ponti, R. Samson, & K. Wagenknecht (Eds.), The Science of Citizen Science (pp. 419–437). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58278-4_21

Viana, D. S., Blanco-Garrido, F., Delibes, M., & Clavero, M. (2022). A 16th-century biodiversity and crop inventory. Ecology, 103(10), e3783. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3783

La entrada The Topographical Relations of Philip II (1574–1582): Local knowledge to describe a territory se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.

A healthy soil is a natural, non-renewable, highly dynamic, and complex resource. Although soil degradation is a natural process, anthropogenic pressure associated with intensive agricultural production, urban developments, and climate change has accelerated and intensified it. Minimizing or reversing this trend requires transformative changes, mainly related to land use and management, which can be driven by all sectors of society.

One of the greatest existing limitations when addressing soil degradation is the limited information and public awareness about it and its social importance. This is why citizen science initiatives offer a dual response to this challenge. On one hand, they contribute to soil science because they allow the monitoring of its health, and on the other hand, these participatory practices allow for knowledge transfer, literacy, and the development of the participants’ skills. Furthermore, the generated data returns to these communities in the form of open science, so it benefits not only the scientific communities.

ECHO is a citizen science project focused on the health of European soils that offers this participatory approach for its research. It belongs to one of the 5 Horizon Europe Missions for the year 2030: the Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe” (also called Soil Mission), whose objective is to “provide concrete solutions to the challenges posed by soil degradation and achieve healthy soils across Europe by 2030 through launching, demonstrating, and accelerating the transition towards sustainable soil management practices.” ECHO contributes to this, having its own goal of analyzing, developing, and validating participatory approaches for citizen involvement in soil science. It also aims to demonstrate the integration of citizen science data into existing platforms, such as the European Soil Data Centre, which increases its utility.

Since the beginning of the project in June 2023, its material and citizen science activities were co-designed with the first participants in the role of Ambassadors, and have been put into practice in the first nine national initiatives of ECHO (in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Germany, Poland, Romania, Scotland, and Finland), which have lasted from May 2025 until now. The strategies followed in these first countries are being reproduced in the twenty remaining European countries, where citizen science initiatives are active from February to November 2026.

In all ECHO initiatives, an extensive network of Ambassadors has been created to act as local facilitators of citizen participation, together with the coordinating entities of each national initiative. They have been in charge of recruiting citizen scientists, have organized group soil sampling days, and have facilitated local project activities. They thus extend the reach of each initiative to a wider audience and have brought great value to the project. The citizen scientists, in turn, actively contribute to data collection and soil analysis, participating in local field activities and conducting soil sampling, in-situ measurements, and taking samples for subsequent laboratory analysis.

The Ibercivis Foundation has been the coordinating entity of the ECHO national initiative in Spain, where we have created a solid group of approximately 40 Ambassadors, out of the more than 420 across the nine countries. These people have regularly participated in Ibercivis meetings and activities to manage local initiatives and, for their part, have organized and coordinated up to 35 activities. These activities, mostly focused on raising public awareness of the project to motivate their involvement, have ranged from oral presentations at conferences to workshops and group sampling days that, above all, allowed for a better understanding of the ECHO sampling protocol. All this has resulted in more than 650 samples being taken in Spain, in different biogeographical points of the region where diverse uses and types of soil exist: from agricultural, forestry, industrial, or urban soils. These samples have been taken by, at least, the same number of citizen scientists, since many of them have been taken in larger groups.

To date, more than 6,000 soil samples have been taken across Europe within the framework of the ECHO project. Each sample covers the eight soil health indicators established by the Soil Mission: plant cover, forest cover and landscape heterogeneity, biodiversity in terms of earthworms and microbial diversity, presence of contaminants, heavy metals and nutrients, soil structure and texture, organic matter content, and pH. The use of these standardized indicators, which have been widely tested and are extensively used worldwide, contributes to the homogenization of soil monitoring in Europe and ensures its correct integration into other monitoring programs such as LUCAS. The results of each ECHO soil sample are accessible to the general public from the ECHOREPO platform, which allows downloading for those individuals who have participated in the sampling and allows all interested citizens to be informed. Furthermore, this repository contributes to the scientific use of its data by university students, specialized non-profit groups, or soil science research groups for a deeper analysis of general soil health in Europe.

ECHO continues to seek citizen participation and incorporate new soil samples in twenty European countries (France, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, Czechia, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). In this way, the project aims to improve soil literacy, facilitate the co-production of knowledge between citizens and the scientific community, and foster more environmentally friendly soil management, offering a replicable approach across Europe.

The project ECHO – Engaging citizens in soil science: the road to healthier soils is funded by the European Union (GA No 101112869) and co-funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) (GA No 10068004).

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Long before the term “citizen science” was coined at the end of the 20th century, there were countless women and men in our country who collected data, mapped territories, recorded meteorological observations, classified plants or sustained entire scientific expeditions from a practical, local and committed knowledge. Without academic or nominal recognition in many cases. Without more infrastructure than their rigor, their network of contacts and their notebook in many others.

This series of publications is a journey through some of those antecedents. Not to rewrite history, but to place what we do today in a longer tradition: that of those who approached science and its construction as common goods.

We will cover eleven milestones, from the 16th century to the beginning of the 21st century:

• The Topographical Relations of Philip II (16th century), a work of territorial knowledge built with local contributions.
• Isabel Zendal (18th–19th century), a key nurse in the first global vaccination campaign.
• Pascual Madoz (19th century), coordinator of a vast work of territorial knowledge prepared with local contributions.
• Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola (19th century), a naturalist who defended the prehistoric origin of the paintings of Altamira against official rejection.
• Blanca Catalán de Ocón (19th century), naturalist, the first Spanish woman recognized by official botany.
• The Secondary Climatological Network (1911), the first great climatological network of volunteer observers in Spain.
• The Astronomical Society of Spain and America (1911), a community of observers for tracking celestial bodies and phenomena.
• The collaboration between the Spanish Institute of Oceanography and the fishermen’s guilds (20th century), exchange of data and mutual support between marine science and local knowledge.
• The Aranzadi Science Society (1947), an associative scientific community dedicated to the knowledge and protection of natural and cultural heritage.
• Francisco Bernis (20th century), zoologist, promoter of participatory ornithology, founder of the Spanish Ornithological Society.
• Javier Blasco Zumeta (20th–21st century), teacher, coordinator of an international network that identified thousands of species and revealed nearly 200 new ones.

Credits to AEMET for the image.
Launching of kites and observation balloons in the waters of Tenerife in 1905 from the “Princesse Alice”, the yacht of Prince Albert of Monaco, an enthusiastic patron of atmospheric research. The character is the German meteorologist Hugo Hergesell, a great promoter of aerological studies.

Each story responds to the same question about what this figure or this initiative teaches us as relevant examples of what we call citizen science today.

Part One: Philip II’s Topographical Reports (1574–1582): Local knowledge used to describe a territory

Part Two: Isabel Zendal (1773 – ?): The key piece of science’s first «human infrastructure»

Part three: The Dictionary of Pascual Madoz (1845–1850): A Territorial “Wikipedia” Built Before the Internet

La entrada Before it was called ‘citizen science’ se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.