Sabadell hosts its first Citizen Science Conference

Jornades Ciència Ciutadana a Sabadell
06/10/2022 - 16:32 h - Science Octavi Planells

With the slogan “Transforming data into knowledge”, the Casal Pere Quart in Sabadell will host the first Citizen Science Conference on 18 and 19 October, organised by Sabadell City Council, the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona and the Catalan Government’s Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda. Barcelona City Council is one of the collaborating entities and, through its Citizen Science Office, will actively participate in the conference, as will several projects attached to the Office.

For two days, the Casal Pere Quart will be attended by leading representatives of the scientific and educational environment sharing projects, opportunities and challenges related to citizen science. In the metropolitan, Catalan and European environment, there are many participatory projects based on open citizen data. The event is proposed as a face-to-face forum to give visibility and promote projects and lines of action for a transversal and effective use of citizen science as a tool to respond to the current challenges of our society, both from the point of view of research and environmental and social challenges, with the ultimate goal of transforming data into knowledge.

In this context, the Citizen Science Office of Barcelona City Council brings together a series of municipal and metropolitan projects that have joined the organisation and adopted its decalogue of good practices. The Office’s project coordinator, Diana Escobar, will participate as moderator in the inaugural conversation of the conference, which will address the role of citizen science as an element that transforms society. The conversation will include the opinions of Aitana Oltra, scientific coordinator and co-founder of Mosquito Alert, and Jaume Piera, researcher at the ICM-CSIC and coordinator of Cos4Cloud. In addition, a wide range of projects attached to the Office will be represented in the conference activities. These projects are Mosquito Alert, CitieS-Helath, BioBlitz Barris, RiuNet, WeCount, RitmeNatura, Observadores del Mar and Floodup.

Citizen science proposes a new way of democratising science and research, putting technology within the reach of non-specialist citizens so that they can participate in the solution and progress. The formats present at the Citizen Science Days include 17 round tables, 10 thematic keynote speeches and 4 participative workshops that bring together 80 speakers and an audience of more than 160 people.

The event seeks to project the sectoral agents and support synergies and alliances involving different agents in order to promote its use as a backbone tool for innovation policies and to study methodological solutions present in the market in order to boost its territorial implementation. Citizen science empowers, collects evidence and proposes solutions: from education, the improvement of people’s living conditions, the interrelation between different agents to innovation and research processes.

Throughout the conference, participants will be able to learn about numerous successful experiences that will exemplify all these aspects and will bring to the table points of debate such as the educational component of citizen science, communication strategies to involve different agents, the transformation of data into knowledge and the challenges facing this discipline.

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