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.

These mark the first steps in a citizen science initiative aimed at gaining a better understanding of water quality and the presence of nitrates in rural areas.

The sampling, carried out thanks to public participation in the Santibáñez and Valdehumada valleys, enabled a total of 31 water samples to be collected, mostly from private wells, but also from fountains, water troughs, springs and other supply points, providing valuable information on water resources used in daily life.

Although the activity was initially aimed at people who had previously registered via the project’s website, community involvement has been one of the defining features of these early campaigns, and the response from local residents exceeded the organisers’ expectations. Several people spontaneously joined those already registered in the various localities, demonstrating the existing interest in understanding the quality of the local water they use regularly and in contributing to the generation of environmental knowledge useful for the region.

As well as helping with the collection, participants shared information on the history and traditional use of numerous water sources in the region, providing valuable local context to the data collected.

The samples have been preserved in accordance with the protocols established by the project and transferred to the University of Burgos, where the relevant laboratory analyses are currently being carried out.

Thanks to this network of participants, ambassadors and collection points, the project is beginning to build a detailed map of water quality in the study areas.

The sample collection campaigns will continue until next August in various areas of Castile and León, Aragon and Portugal.

The University of Burgos encourages local residents, associations, local councils, irrigation communities and anyone else interested to join this citizen science initiative. The more samples collected, the more comprehensive and representative the map will be, enabling us to determine the presence of nitrates and the state of water resources in the region.

Those interested can view the study areas and participation options, and register via the sampling campaign page on the website.

La entrada Life-Nitrazens’ first community campaign in Odra-Pisuerga measures nitrate levels in the water se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.

The participating community collaborated in practical workshops and field measurements around Matadero-Medialab.

The TTN-Madrid working group and the Openred project have successfully completed their joint working session. This technical and collaborative meeting has consolidated the progress achieved in environmental monitoring and outlined new pathways for cooperation within the field of citizen science.

During the conference, the TTN-Madrid working group presented an innovative technological solution based on ESP32¹ microcontrollers, which allows gamma radiation values to be sent in real time to the Openred platform. The viability of the system was demonstrated through a live simulation connecting the devices to the Openred platform via TTN’s (The Things Network) LoRaWAN IoT network².

The technological solution of the conference

One of the central axes of the session was the analysis of the prototype’s technical architecture. With the aim of guaranteeing stability in data acquisition, communication between the radiation detector and the controller was resolved through a physical USB connection. This design decision provides high robustness to the system and minimizes electromagnetic interference associated with Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

For efficient management of data flow, the ecosystem integrates a second M5Stack³ microcontroller, in charge of data storage and uploading. Communication between both components is carried out efficiently via SPI serial⁴ connection. This configuration shapes up to be a highly useful solution for the deployment of fixed or stationary networks, also offering great flexibility for the future addition of new sensors.

Field tests and active participation

The session continued with a practical measurement workshop in which attendees could learn firsthand how validated Openred devices measure radiation and actively participated in a phase of real measurements around Matadero-Medialab.

Through the Openred mobile application, the working team transmitted their impressions about the implemented system and opened a technical debate between participants and Openred staff. Among the improvement proposals oriented to the operation of the Openred API, the idea of registering measurements as individual points instead of a continuous track stood out, an adjustment that will increase spatial precision in radiation mapping.

Beyond radiation: Monitoring light pollution

The meeting also served to expand the platform’s horizons. The viability of integrating light pollution indicators into the Openred platform was demonstrated through the use of validated lux meters. This addition widens the spectrum of physical and environmental variables that citizens can monitor in an open, rigorous, and accessible way.

The balance of the session has been highly positive. In addition to making visible the technological development that TTN-Madrid has linked to the Openred project, this meeting establishes the roadmap for future collaborations between both scientific communities, reinforcing the role of open-source technology as a fundamental pillar of collective knowledge.

Glossary of technical terms

• ¹ ESP32: A low-cost and low-consumption chip or microcontroller that includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections. It is one of the most widely used pieces of “open hardware” to create technological prototypes and connect sensors to the internet.
• ² LoRaWAN (and TTN): A wireless network technology specifically designed for the Internet of Things (IoT). It allows devices to send data over long distances with very little battery consumption and without the need to use commercial mobile networks or Wi-Fi. The Things Network (TTN) is the global and open community that supports this network.
• ³ M5Stack: A modular device containing a microcontroller protected by a casing, which usually includes a screen and buttons. It facilitates the quick and safe development of electronic projects without leaving components exposed.
• ⁴ SPI Serial: A communication protocol that functions as an internal short-range “data highway”. It allows two electronic components or microcontrollers that are very close to send information to each other directly, cleanly, and very quickly.
• ⁵ API: Acronym for Application Programming Interface. It is the IT bridge that allows the Openred application to “talk” directly to the website’s database to automatically upload measurements.

About the entities TTN-Madrid and Openred

About TTN-Madrid: Local community linked to The Things Network dedicated to the development and deployment of open, free, and decentralized Internet of Things (IoT) networks using LoRaWAN technology.

About Openred: Citizen science project whose main objective is the creation of an open and collaborative map of environmental radioactivity levels in Spain. Openred seeks to democratize access to science, allowing citizens to generate data of high scientific value under a rigorous methodology, while promoting citizen culture in radiological protection.

Openred is an initiative driven by the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) and the Ibercivis Foundation, in collaboration with experts from the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), the University of Zaragoza, the University of Cantabria, and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

La entrada The TTN-Madrid community and the Openred project boost environmental monitoring in their technical conference se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.

Through the use of specific scientific kits and citizen science methodologies in which Ibercivis participates, volunteers from the Ebro and Duero river basins will collect rigorous data that will foster evidence-based water governance.

The excessive presence of nitrates in surface and groundwater constitutes one of the most complex ecological and health challenges in rural and agricultural environments. With the intention of comprehensively addressing this issue, the European project Life-Nitrazens has launched its measurement campaigns, an initiative that seeks to mitigate water pollution by promoting the sustainability of agricultural systems and the protection of river ecosystems.

The measurement campaigns directly call upon volunteer citizens to carry out water sampling, ambassadors to dynamicize and guide those who participate, and node leaders so that their entity, association, or city council can be a physical meeting point where volunteers collect their material and deliver samples. Registration to participate in the campaigns is done through a form hosted on the project’s own website.

Different ways to participate according to your level of involvement

The project offers its participants three ways to get involved:

• Ambassador: Ambassadors are the eyes and hands of the project on the ground, highly involved individuals or initiatives in charge of managing campaigns and participants in their area. Life-Nitrazens will provide them with everything necessary for this task—informative material, sample kits, support sessions, talks in the area about the project…—and they will be able to coordinate with participants through a WhatsApp community created for this purpose.
• Node: In each area, the project needs a physical space to store samples while respecting the cold chain, and a person responsible for sending them to the respective analysis laboratories in Zaragoza and Burgos. The person in charge of the node may or may not be an ambassador, or can coordinate with ambassadors and participants in the area to collect the samples and transfer them to the laboratory.
• Participant: Any person or entity involved with their territory who wants to know the health of their water and participate in a European project like Life-Nitrazens. In coordination with their ambassadors, participants will sample the water in their environment, either individually or in the collaborative campaigns that each ambassador organizes. Each participant will be responsible for taking their sample to their node and will receive constant information, advice, and the analysis results of their sample, as well as recognition from the project for their work.

Once the participation role in these campaigns has been decided, the sample collection protocol is as follows:

1. Registration: Complete one of the registration forms according to your role (as ambassador/node or as participant) and join the WhatsApp Community of the corresponding area.
2. Collection of the Measurement Kit: Go to the assigned reference node on the agreed day to collect a measurement kit that allows a first monitoring directly in the natural or consumption environment.
3. Sampling: Visit the study areas to take water samples following the instructions in the guides provided by the project. The extraction points can be springs, wells, streams, or supply networks.
4. Geolocation: Register the sample data on the Geonity citizen science platform to validate the exact geolocation in situ.
5. Delivery to the node: Bring the sample to the node in less than 3 hours to avoid the degradation of the components and ensure the reliability of the nitrate data.
6. Validation and Scientific Analysis: Check the results of the measurements on the project’s digital platform after the final laboratory analysis.

Thanks to citizen science, measurement campaigns not only multiply the volume of available data on a spatial scale that traditional science could hardly cover autonomously, but also boost environmental awareness among the population.

The Life-Nitrazens project

The objective of Life-Nitrazens is the creation of a centralized data repository and the development of Best Management Practices (BMPs) guides to optimize the use of fertilizers in the agrifood fabric. To achieve this, the initiative has a multidisciplinary consortium of entities: the scientific leadership and monitoring of the pilot areas fall upon leading academic and research institutions, such as the University of Burgos (project coordinator), the Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (CITA), and the Universidade de Coimbra. Likewise, the project has the key support of public administrations and territorial entities such as the Junta de Castilla y León and the Município de Soure, along with agents from the water, technological, and agricultural sectors in charge of channeling training, water management, and digital solutions on farms, such as Águas do Centro Litoral, the Associação de Beneficiários do Baixo Mondego, the Comunidad General de Riegos del Alto Aragón, Osoigo, and Innovalia Association.

In this consortium, the Ibercivis Foundation assumes the responsibility of leading the communication and dissemination work package and coordinating citizen science methodologies together with the University of Burgos. Ibercivis provides its participatory infrastructure and its experience in environmental protection projects to ensure that the sample collection process by the non-specialized public meets the standards of rigor and scientific validation that public administrations and Hydrographic Confederations require for subsequent political decision-making.

Life-Nitrazens is funded by the LIFE program of the European Union under project ID 101215633.

La entrada Participate in the Life-Nitrazens measurement campaigns: citizens monitor the health of our waters against nitrate pollution 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).

La entrada Towards healthier soils: ECHO initiatives come to an end in Spain, but continue in much of Europe se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.

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.

On June 17th, the online event “No project is an island” will take place—a meeting designed to reflect on the impacts achieved, debate the integration of citizen science into research, and define the next steps.

The event, titled “No project is an island – Bridges towards a joint legacy for the future of CS in Europe”, will take place on June 17th, from 09:30 to 15:00 CEST, marking the closure of the European projects European Citizen Science (ECS) and IMPETUS. With the aim of celebrating their achievements and promoting citizen science practices, we invite researchers, social actors, and interested citizens to participate in this conference.

The programme will feature representatives from active European projects such as Reinforcing, COALESCE, and Science Comes to Town. This panel will discuss the necessary strategies to ensure that open and participatory research continues to expand.

Additionally, the event will include a session led by Vanessa Mignan, an expert in inclusion and public engagement. Mignan will guide the debate “The Citizen Science Anti-Manifesto”, a collective exercise designed to identify the biases of the scientific community in its relationship with groups traditionally excluded from research spaces.

To conclude, the third IMPETUS Demo Day will be held, featuring a dynamic format of short presentations where the projects integrated into the IMPETUS accelerator will pitch their proposals. Attendees will take on the role of key stakeholders, evaluating the feasibility and impact of these initiatives for the next generation of citizen science projects.

Date: June 17th, 2026

Time: 09:30 – 15:00 CEST

Format: Online

Registration: You can now secure your place through the Zoom registration link.

La entrada No Project Is an Island: ECS & IMPETUS Come Together for One Final Event se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.

Ibercivis and CIEMAT coordinate EOSC-CSN, which will establish the governance framework and technical architecture for integrating citizen science communities into the European Open Science Cloud. Funded by Horizon Europe, the project launches an open call for expressions of interest from European experts.

Fundación Ibercivis and the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT) today launch EOSC-CSN (EOSC Citizen Science Node), a Horizon Europe initiative that will design the first thematic citizen science node within the EOSC Federation — the digital research infrastructure connecting scientific institutions across more than 40 European countries.

The project, funded with €50,000 over six months under the EOSC Gravity Preparatory Grants scheme, is completed by Citizen Science Italia and the University of Leiden (representing Citizen Science Nederland).

A strategic pathway for the European citizen science community

The EOSC Federation currently depends on academic credentials (EduGAIN) for resource access, inadvertently excluding thousands of citizen researchers, NGOs, and participatory science communities that generate high-value scientific data across Europe. EOSC-CSN addresses this structural barrier by designing a multi-level governance model, AARC-compliant identity proxies, and FAIR validation tooling specifically adapted to community-led research.

The project’s primary deliverable is the Node’s Project Charter — the foundational document establishing the technical and operational architecture for integrating citizen science into the EOSC Federation. This charter will serve as the roadmap toward a permanent European Research Infrastructure (ESFRI/ERIC), backed by letters of intent from the science ministries of Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands.

The project follows a ‘Design-by-Validation’ approach: a panel of 15 Community Leaders will functionally test the proposed solutions, while an Expert Group of 10–15 specialists will provide rigorous peer review of governance, technical and legal compliance with EOSC standards.

“EOSC-CSN opens a strategic pathway for the European citizen science community. For the first time, the continent’s public research infrastructure is being explicitly designed to include unaffiliated researchers alongside institutional scientists. What we build in these six months will define how citizens participate in European science for the next decade,” said the Ibercivis coordination team.

Open call: 10–15 European experts

In parallel with the launch, the project opens a public call to constitute an Expert Group of 10–15 European specialists who will peer-review and validate the Project Charter. Profiles sought include expertise in citizen science platforms and networks, EOSC and FAIR data management, participatory research, research infrastructure governance, legal and ethical aspects, interoperability and metadata, and sustainability models.

Participation involves 2–3 online meetings of approximately 90 minutes between June and August 2026, plus document review (approximately 1–2 working days). Selected experts will receive a fee of €300 for their contribution. University or institutional affiliation is not required. The call is open until 16 June 2026.

Expressions of interest should be sent to info@ibercivis.es with the subject line ‘EoI: EOSC-CSN Expert Group’, including: name, affiliation and country; half a page on relevant experience; area(s) of contribution; and one concrete idea the EOSC-CSN should address. Full details at eosc.riecs.eu.

About EOSC-CSN

EOSC-CSN (Sub-Grant Agreement EOSCGravity-PREP-2026-027-EOSC-CSN) is funded under EOSC Gravity (GA 101188045) by the European Union, May–November 2026. Views expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU or the European Commission. Further information: eosc.riecs.eu — eosc.eu/horizon-europe-projects/eosc-csn

La entrada Launch of the EOSC-CSN project se publicó primero en Fundación Ibercivis.