On 18 June, Ignacio Becerril Romero, head of the Proposals and Grants Department of Fundación Ibercivis, gave an online workshop on how to include citizen science in competitive funding projects.
The activity brought together more than 60 people from universities, research centers, educational centers, associations, companies and other entities linked to research, science outreach and citizen participation.
The workshop was organized by Fundación Descubre, the Universidad Pablo de Olavide and Fundación Ibercivis within the framework of the Andalucía + Ciencia Ciudadana project, and those registered reflected a wide diversity of experience in citizen science: some were approaching it for the first time, while others were already collaborating in participatory initiatives, managing citizen science projects, or had taken part in previous funding calls.
The session began with an introduction to citizen science, its historical evolution and its main characteristics as a research approach, accompanied by examples of projects, platforms and impacts. This was followed by a review of different funding programs and opportunities at the European and national level, assessing their suitability for integrating citizen science activities.
The core of the workshop was devoted to the elements that determine the design of a solid proposal: the role of citizens and their level of participation, the scope of action, the target audience of the project, the return to participants, data management and ethical aspects. The session also addressed practical questions of drafting and structure — from interpreting calls for proposals and forming consortia to preparing the budget and addressing evaluation criteria — with attention to the particularities that citizen science introduces in each section.
Throughout the session it was emphasized that citizen science cannot be incorporated into a project as a decorative or merely communicative element. For it to carry weight in a competitive proposal, it must be coherently integrated into the objectives, methodology, work plan and expected impacts.
The training closed with a discussion space in which questions mainly revolved around how to articulate citizen participation in different areas of knowledge. For Fundación Ibercivis, this type of activity is part of its work in strengthening capacities for the design of participatory projects and in supporting entities and researchers who want to translate their ideas into rigorous funding proposals with social impact.
