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The European Citizen Science Academy, an entity built under the European Citizen Science be presented and introduced to the wider citizen science community. This session will present the timeline and activities done over the past three years to develop the academy and what it seeks to achieve.

Abstract

For the past three years and half, the ECS project has been working on developing a European Citizen Science Academy. It started with the creation of a network of citizen science educators and trainers that participated in co-creating a blueprint of the ECS Academy. This blueprint represents what the ECS Academy should be ideally, from the perspective of citizen science educators and trainers. The ECS Academy developed a network of researchers, alongside the Marie Curie Alumni Association, and has leveraged the moodle system which was set in the EU-citizen.science project to include new functionalities as part of the citizensicence.eu platform.The ECS Academy seeks to 1) showcase the scope of citizen science training across the EU, 2) fill in training gaps, and 3) facilitate the work of CS educators and trainers, 4) be a reference point to learn about citizen science. This talk will showcase the ECS Academy is, what it currently includes, what it seeks to achieve, and what it has achieved during ECS.

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The EU GREEN Alliance integrates citizen science into projects, courses, and institutional strategies, creating new connections between universities and society. We share experiences, tools, and perspectives to inspire the next generation of citizen scientists.

Abstract

Citizen science is becoming a powerful connector between universities and society. Within the European University alliance for sustainability, responsible GRowth, inclusive Education and ENvironment (EU GREEN), CS is not just a research tool, but it is a driver of educational innovation and institutional change. The Citizen Science Task Force, as part of the Engagement work package, which connects academia, local authorities, and civil society, acts on three intertwined levels. At the project level, initiatives like “BioUNIVERSITY” engage the academic communities (students, teachers, researchers and staff), and the local communities in biodiversity monitoring on campuses, turning university grounds into living laboratories. At the educational level, the blended intensive program “Citizen Science in Action” offers students hands-on experience in designing and running CS projects. Drawing on materials from both the EU-Citizen Science platform and the European Citizen Science Academy, the program combines solid theoretical foundations with creative, practice-based learning. At the institutional level, a survey maps existing CS activities to foster knowledge exchange and guide transformation. To strengthen this process, we integrated the Academy’s “Self-assessment Tool for Institutional Changes and Impact,” enabling universities to reflect on their progress and set shared ambitions. Collaboration with schools, libraries, municipalities, NGOs, and the society further amplifies these efforts, weaving CS into the fabric of local communities. This contribution shares experiences, challenges, and opportunities in embedding CS education across a European University Alliance, highlighting synergies with the ECS Academy’s networks and frameworks, and outlining pathways to inspire the next generation of citizen scientists.

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The Natural History Museum London has a well-established community science programme and has recently created a new role dedicated to upskilling facilitators. Following participation in ECS Academy, we showcase how we have been applying the insights gained in three upskilling strategies.

Abstract

The Natural History Museum London’s Community Science Programme is well established, having delivered a broad range of innovative community science research projects for over fifteen years. The Museum has an institutional commitment to EDI and actively works to engage the widest possible audience in its programmes. The Programme recognises the need for innovative strategies and deliberate action for community science to shift away from the periphery and engage people beyond current audiences.

Following participation in the ECS Academy’s regular Trainers and Educators network meetings, and the Train the Trainer and Citizen Science in the Classroom courses, the Museum implemented three contrasting strategies for training community science facilitators.

The need to upskill facilitators, especially in one-to-many sessions, enables community science projects to scale up while at the same time being locally-relevant and impactful, thanks to facilitators’ close ties with the local community. The Museum has recently created a role dedicated to upskilling, therefore identifying impactful training approaches for different audiences is a priority.

In this presentation, we share lessons and reflections from three training approaches: short-term training of work placement students, medium-term training of Museum facilitators, and Train the Trainer for project staff and external collaborators for long-term impact. We compare these strategies, examine their relative degrees of success, resource intensity and potential to scale further. Finally, we share reflections on the benefits of the Academy itself in providing new lenses and reflective practice amongst the community science practitioner community.

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Training activities have become a core activity of museums, with an increasing interest for outdoor and citizen science practice. The experience at MUSE highlights the great potential of museums to meet this need, but also challenges and the importance of networking and competency framework.

Abstract

Nowadays, natural history museums are complex organizations that pursue various missions: conservation of scientific collections, scientific research, higher education, knowledge dissemination, social inclusion, increase scientific and ecological literacy. In line with this view, educational and training activities have become a core activity of this institutions that can rely on experienced staff, specific equipment and huge collections that make the learning experience more effective and meaningful. Today, MUSE-Science Museum of Trento provide trainings on a variety of topics, ranging from temporary exhibitions, STEM subjects, outdoor education and citizen science. Our targets include a vast majority of teachers, but also nature professionals, academic students and project’s participants. For each target different training programs have been developed, providing an insight on the aspects they are more interested in: citizen science integration in school curricula and informal learning (for teachers), project-oriented planning (for nature professionals), species identification and sampling protocol application (for volunteers). Interestingly, since the end of Covid restrictions we have observed a significative increase (+30%) in demand for trainings based on citizen science and outdoor experience and the need of finding a balance between requests, internal availability and further support provision has soon emerged. At the same time a serious assessment of the impact on participants is missing. Networking initiatives, like those supported by ECS Academy, can provide useful tools, shared standards and opportunities to cope with these challenges and support, through citizen science, the accomplishment of most of the functions of a modern museums.

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Austria’s OeAD fosters citizen science in schools through the Sparkling Science programme and the Citizen Science Award. To build educators’ capacities, two accredited teacher trainings were developed, supporting integration into classrooms and award participation.

Abstract

Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD) has a longstanding tradition of coordinating initiatives that connect schools with citizen science. Since 2007, the Sparkling Science funding programme has fostered long-term research collaborations between schools, researchers, and citizen scientists. The Citizen Science Award, a research competition launched in 2015, has provided schools, youth groups, and the wider public with an accessible opportunity to engage in selected citizen science projects on an annual basis.

For children and young people to participate meaningfully and benefit from these initiatives, building educators’ capacities has proven essential. To this end, OeAD has developed two accredited teacher training courses. The autumn course offers an introduction to citizen science and explores ways of integrating projects into the classroom. The spring course focuses on preparing teachers for potential participation in the Citizen Science Award, while also fostering exchange with the featured projects.

This presentation will outline the design and implementation of these teacher training programmes, highlighting their contents, objectives, and practical relevance. Furthermore, it will discuss key success factors and lessons learned, offering insights into how citizen science can be effectively embedded in school education.

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We present "SAG’S MULTI", a citizen science project linking schools, teacher education, and research to explore multilingualism, identity, and educational justice through a multilingual speech contest, promoting critical reflection and empowerment across institutional levels.

Abstract

This contribution presents a citizen science initiative that connects upper-secondary school students, pre-service teachers, and researchers in exploring the long-term impact of participating in a multilingual speech contest (SAG’S MULTI). Within this collaboration, school students become citizen scientists investigating the speech contests participants’ linguistic repertoires, educational trajectories, and experiences of multilingualism and identity. University students in teacher education programmes support the school-based research process, thereby strengthening their own scientific literacy and pedagogical understanding of multilingualism, diversity, and inclusion.

Our approach positions citizen science not only as a methodology for data collection and multiperspective analysis but also as a transformative educational practice that fosters critical reflection on the interrelations between language, identity, and belonging. In a societal context where social (in-)justice is still closely tied to linguistic hierarchies and (prescribed) origins, our project foregrounds the power of multilingualism as a means of empowerment and epistemic justice. Through collaborative research across institutional levels, participants develop a deeper appreciation of linguistic diversity as a resource rather than a deficit in education by engaging with authentic multilingual data, reflecting on their own language biographies, and discussing the sociolinguistic realities of Austrian classrooms.

By bridging school, teacher education, and university contexts, we aim to enhance educational justice in Austria’s multilingual society, promoting equitable participation in both knowledge production and educational opportunities. We will share insights into our research design, highlight challenges and successes of implementing citizen science, and focus on discussing how teacher education can sustainably embed such participatory approaches to foster diversity-aware and socially just learning environments.

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During this talk we will present our vision for the academy as a global leader in capacity building for citizen science whilst maintaining it as a community driven space. This future should closely connected to the vision of the research infrastructure for citizen science, the community and you.

Abstract

The ECS project was developed to strengthen and broaden the European citizen science community. A key component towards achieving this is ensuring everyone has the necessary knowledge to design, implement and evaluate citizen science initiatives. The ECS Academy, a learning hub co-created with the community, was developed to achieve this. With a variety of self paced courses, instructor led courses and learning resources it creates a learning journey for anyone wanting to participate. As the ECS project is ending, ECSA, as the reference organisation for citizen science in Europe, will be responsible for maintaining the academy relevant, active and barrier free whilst ensuring its long term sustainability. During this talk we would like to present our vision for the academy as it strives to be a global leader in capacity building for citizen science whilst maintaining it as a community driven space. Looking ahead, the academy could be an integral part of the capacity building services of the emerging research infrastructure for citizen science that the RIECS-Concept project is conceptualising, ensuring that training and capacity building remain accessible and aligned with wider European efforts. The academy’s future development should be closely connected to the vision of research infrastructure, the community and you.

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In this part of the session, a workshop will focus on the Citizen Science Competency Framework (CitSci Comp). In the workshop, you'll learn about CitSciComp an will have an opportunity to assess your skills, share the training that you provide, and consider CitSciComp relevance.

Abstract

What skills and competencies do we expect people who work in citizen science (CS) to have? The European Commission (EC) has developed a range of competency frameworks in the past decade. Frameworks such as GreenComp or DigiComp are clarifying what skills those that work in sustainability and ITs are supposed to have. Within these competency frameworks, ResearchComp is aimed at those that work in the field of research and innovation. ResearchComp identifies many skills, among them are skills for public engagement and CS. It is now being rolled out to be used across the research and innovation sector, and will influence programmes of training - such as the curriculum of training for doctoral students across Europe.

Within the ECS project, ResearchComp provided the basis to develop a dedicated framework for CS - CitSciComp. The framework was developed through a series of participatory activities and discussions. In the workshop, we will first introduce the CitSciComp and its development, explore with participants the role and the impact that the CitSci Comp could have on their work and career development in CS. In addition, to ensure that CitSci Comp is fit for purpose, participants will be asked to examine several areas of competencies, rate themselves, and identify training resources and courses and map them according to CitSciComp. These activities will be the basis for a discussion on how ECSA and the ECS Academy should use (and not use) the framework including within the framework of a research infrastructure for CS (RIECS-concept).