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Short Abstract

Citizen Observatories are infrastructures for participatory environmental governance. The talk will focus on how we can support collaboration across all stages of the data cycle and foster institutional responsiveness to citizen evidence.

Abstract

The Horizon Europe project CitiObs (citiobs.eu) advances the idea of Citizen Observatories as living infrastructures for participatory environmental governance. At its core, CitiObs works to strengthen the mutual data literacy of citizens, researchers, and policymakers , ensuring that citizen-generated data not only informs but also shapes local environmental action.

CitiObs develops and tests a set of toolkits and co-creation methods that help local actors work together across the full data cycle: co-defining questions, co-designing sampling strategies, interpreting data in context, and reflecting how this data can contribute to environmental policy. These tools aim to bridge fragmented data competencies and to foster trust, shared understanding, and accountability between community actors and institutions.

In CitiObs we explore how collaborating with creative practitioners and incorporating creative practices has the possibility of transforming data collection into shared processes of interpretation, communication, and action. CitiObs has developed the Citizen-led Action Toolkit, providing practical guidance for finding, engaging, and collaborating with creative practitioners, integrating artistic practices and creative thinking into co-creation processes. The toolkit provides inspiration for individuals and communities that are motivated to take action in the context of environmental protection. It outlines tools such as open calls, co-design assemblies, skill mapping, and joint planning strategies aimed at facilitating meaningful collaboration between citizens and creatives from early project planning to action and reflection.

Through practical cases , this talk explores how such tools can enhance mutual data awareness, support inclusive environmental monitoring, and embed citizen evidence into urban policy processes. An example is the CitiObs case in Barcelona, where citizens used environmental monitors to monitor noise. In collaboration with local creatives, they co-designed Rut, an interactive AI chatbot reflecting community voices. Posters with QR codes invited passersby to chat with Rut on Telegram, where it answered noise-related questions and shared resident stories.