Deliverables

Executive Summary

The primary mission of the WeObserve project, officially launched in December 2017, is to move citizen science into the mainstream by building a sustainable ecosystem of citizen observatories and related activities. The WeObserve consortium brings together the current H2020 COs (Ground Truth 2.0, GROW, LandSense, Scent) to actively open up the citizen science landscape through wide ranging networks, users, and stakeholders, including ECSA, GEOSS, and Copernicus, to foster social innovation opportunities. This report summarizes the discussions and activities undertaken during the kick-off meeting on December 12-13, 2017 in Laxenburg, Vienna. In addition to the meeting agenda, key outcomes are also described that will help guide the successful implementation of the project.

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Executive Summary

Citizen Observatories, which invite the public to contribute observations, data and information to community-based environmental monitoring programmes, can play an important role in crucial areas such as climate change, sustainable development, air monitoring, flood and drought monitoring, land cover or
land-use change.

Amongst the benefits of Citizen Observatories are that these contributions can be used to complement authoritative, traditional in-situ and r30/07/2018emote sensing Earth Observation data. Citizen Observatories can also provide new data sources for policy-making, and they can result in increased citizen participation in environmental management and governance at a large scale.

With the increasing prevalence of Citizen Observatories globally, there have been calls for a more integrated approach to handling their complexities, and to sharing crucial knowledge for the design and management of stable, reliable and scalable Citizens’ Observatory programmes. Answering this challenge in the European context, the Horizon 2020-funded project WeObserve aims to improve coordination between existing Citizen Observatories and related European activities, while tackling three key challenges that inhibit the mainstreaming of citizen science: Awareness, Acceptability, and Sustainability.

Systematically tackling these challenges first requires the aggregating, building and strengthening of the Citizen Observatory knowledge base. The first step in doing so is to map the EU landscape to identify the existing Citizen Observatory networks and their associated ecosystems and stakeholders, in order to gain insights into the development, operation and challenges facing Citizen Observatories in Europe.

This Landscape Report forms the first part of this dynamic exercise to establish the frameworks for describing and comparing Citizen Observatories in Europe (Deliverable 2.1 – Frameworks), a follow-up Landscape Report that Maps the Citizen Observatories in Europe (Deliverable 2.1 – An Overview of COs in Europe), and the final Landscape Report in Month 24 of the project (Deliverable 2.4 – The Landscape of COs in Europe).

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Executive Summary

Citizen Science (CS) is on the rise worldwide. In the EU, efforts in the area of CS have been channelled into developing the concept of Citizen Observatories (COs). COs are the means by which communities can monitor and report on their environment and access information that is easily understandable for decision making. To capitalize upon and consolidate these ongoing efforts, the WeObserve consortium aims to bring together the current set of European Horizon 2020 (H2020) COs, enabling improved coordination between these COs and promoting related activities at the regional, European and international level. WeObserve will coordinate and deliver a much needed CO knowledge framework to avoid duplication, share best practices as well as identify barriers and synergies. Ultimately, WeObserve seeks to move citizen science into the mainstream by building a sustainable ecosystem of citizen observatories and related activities.

As a key mechanism for consolidating the knowledge inside as well as beyond the WeObserve consortium, WeObserve Task T2.2 is launching and coordinating dedicated Communities of Practice (CoPs). This document outlines the Terms of Reference and the Guidelines for the ways of working for the CoPs. It specifies, inter alia, incentives to participate in the CoPs, guiding principles and tools, CoP responsibilities, and a timeline including a launch event. WeObserve will launch an initial set of three CoPs:

• CoP1: Co-creating citizen observatories and engaging citizens (led by IHE Delft);
• CoP2: Impact and value of citizen observatories for governance (led by IHE Delft);
• CoP3: Interoperability and standards for citizen observatories (led by CREAF).

Compared to existing efforts and networks in the area of Citizen Science, the WeObserved CoPs provide a clear structure for managing CoP activities, a set of tools for leading the CoPs, and funds to enable member participation. The WeObserve CoPs will also receive assistance in dissemination and outreach activities and use a common set of rules for ensuring IP protection and reputation. This increases the chances of creating value to participants in the CoPs, and to stakeholders in and outside the WeObserve consortium.

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Executive Summary

One of the key objectives of WeObserve is to assess the current CO knowledge base and strengthen it to tackle future environmental challenges using CO-driven science. WeObserve Task T2.2 has launched four Communities of Practice (CoPs) as a key mechanism for consolidating the knowledge inside as well as beyond the WeObserve consortium. The key role of the CoPs is to serve as the vehicle for sharing information and knowledge on selected key thematic topics related to COs, strengthening the knowledge base about COs in order to move citizen science into the mainstream of environmental management and decision making.

The first three WeObserve CoPs were set up and launched during workshops at the ECSA conference 2018, on 6 June in Geneva (immediately following the main ECSA conference). The fourth CoP was launched at a dedicated session at the conference ‘Citizen Observatories for Water Management’ on 29 November 2018.

This report presents the current status of the WeObserve CoPs, reporting on their launch events, respective thematic focus, work plans and progress to date. The report also takes stock of lessons learned from running these CoPs and how the WeObserve has responded to challenges related to CoP members’ fluxes in participation.

All four WeObserve CoPs have formed stable groups of practitioners, with a clear focus on their respective themes, but the overarching aim of the WeObserve CoPs to consolidate knowledge dispersed across various stakeholders is not completely met and will require additional efforts to engage different stakeholder types.

A continuous discussion in the CoPs from their launch workshops in Geneva (June 2018) till the Forum in Venice (November 2018) has related to the definition of terms in general and the distinction of Citizen Science and Citizen Observatories in particular. At Forum #2, consensus was reached across CoPs on definitions of these key fundamental concepts. All four CoPs have contributed to creating this understanding of fundamental concepts and key terms. Moreover, the common glossary of terms the CoPs have produced is already a useful contribution to the wider community of CO and CS practitioners. As there is no ECSA glossary of terms, the WeObserve glossary presents a sound starting point and ECSA provides a perspective for maintaining this beyond the lifetime of the WeObserve project.

Several lessons have been learned regarding the set up and management of the CoPs, namely the careful preferential focus on small tasks, the joint production of scientific articles and usefulness of regular F2F meetings of the respective CoPs as means for ensuring the continued participation of the CoP participants. Resource constraints have affected the outreach activities of the different CoPs, hence limiting the wider dissemination of their results somewhat.

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Executive Summary

WeObserve is a H2020 Coordination and Support Action (CSA) which tackles three key challenges that Citizen Observation (CO) / Citizen Observatories (COs) face: awareness, acceptability and sustainability. Its mission is to create a sustainable ecosystem of COs that can systematically address these identified challenges and help to move Citizen Science (CS) into the mainstream. The project aims to achieve this by improving coordination between existing COs and effectively linking regional, European and International activities.

The specific WeObserve objectives can be summarized as follows:

• Develop Communities of Practice (CoPs) around key topics to assess the current CO knowledge base and strengthen it to tackle future environmental challenges using COdriven science;
• Extend the geographical coverage of the CO knowledge base to new communities and support the implementation of best practices and standards across multiple sectors;
• Demonstrate the added value of COs in environmental monitoring mechanisms within regional and global initiatives, such as GEOSS, Copernicus and the UN Sustainable Development Goals;
• Promote the uptake of information from CO-powered activities across various sectors and foster new opportunities and innovation in the business of in-situ earth observation.

Pathways to achieve these objectives include diverse activities which engage the CO landscape including, but not limited to, landscape mapping, the development of CoPs, public-facing events such as roadshows, publications and academic literature on the subject, and the creation and dissemination of publicly accessible toolkits.

This report tends to the creation and dissemination of toolkits. We look at toolkits in the CO landscape, focusing on what is already in existence, as well as at some of the pertinent discussions on this subject. We also present findings from several scoping activities, including a survey which sought input from the WeObserve Engage CoP, and other key networks, such as the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) and the Citizen Science Association (CSA).

This report is the part of a longer process of building a sustainable CO infrastructure, with specific, replicable tools and processes that will allow individuals, groups, agencies and COs to devise, promote and evaluate their own projects.

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Executive Summary

This is the public deliverable D5.2 Summary of WeObserve events, dissemination and communication activities of the H2020 project WeObserve. This is an accompanying report of actual activities that have taken place within the WeObserve project. This work was carried out as part of WP5 Dissemination, Communication & Outreach. This first edition of this document presents the communication & dissemination activities of WeObserve project up to M16.

During the first 16 months, and following the guidelines outlined in D5.1 DEC Strategy, Outreach and Operative Plan, WeObserve produced the project branding, while in parallel implemented the Knowledge Platform and established its main social media including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. These activities were accompanied by the production of press releases about the various project activities, the creation of communication infrastructure (mailing lists) in the service of the Communities of Practice as well as the project’s newsletters’ subscribers list, and the design and development of dissemination materials (posters, banners, flyers) for the various WeObserve activities and events. Other activities carried out within this period include the launch of the Communities of Practice, organized in the framework of WP2 and a series of public presentations at national and international conferences and events.

Activities for the second period, i.e. M17-M36, will be included in the next version of this deliverable which will be submitted by the end of M36.

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