Karen Soacha – ICM-CSIC
“Cos4Cloud will be the first provider of digital services for citizen observatories. It is a project based on Open Science principles looking for supporting citizen observatories with useful technological solutions that help them tackle challenges, save resources, and expand their impact. At the end of the day, we dream with citizen observatories sustainable and relevant in their context they want to be”
Karen Soacha – Leader of WP5 (Services in practice), Researcher – PhD student at Marine Science Institute (ICM) CSIC.
Sonia Liñán – ICM-CSIC
“We need new approaches to get data that help us to make a difference in safeguarding and understanding our ecosystems. But discoveries require a lot more eyes, ears, and perspectives than scientists currently have. I believe that citizen science provides those eyes and ears, and that can catapult scientific research. I cannot think of a hobby or worry that cannot be addressed with a citizen science project, and projects like Cos4Cloud help to make it possible.”
Sonia Liñán – Leader of WP8 (Communications) and WP9 (Ethics), Citizen engagement coordinator, researcher at ICM-CSIC
Janice Ansine – The Open University
“For me, citizen science is incredibly relevant; it allows anyone to explore an interest in science or the environment and play a role while building their own skills or just the pleasure of contributing. The role of women in this as facilitators and actors cannot and should not be overlooked, and International Womens Day is a good time to reflect on how far women have come, and what we still need to do. We must continue to break down the barriers and inequalities that continue to hinder women’s participation. Regarding the Cos4Cloud project, I am excited about the potential of the collaborations between European citizen observatories and the impact this will have on the environment through the growth, enhancement and future development of the biodiversity platforms in Europe such as www.iSpotnature.org”
Janice Ansine – Leader of WP6 (Networking, Training and Capacity Building), isSenior Project Manager – Citizen Science at The Open University. She is Chair of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) Sharing best practice and building capacity Working Group and a founding member of the UK Tree Health Citizen Science Network (THCSN).
Rachel Redford – The Open University
“Citizen Science brings people, communities, countries and data together, working collaboratively without geographical boundaries to help scientists understand how biodiversity and the environment are doing and highlight where action is needed. And as nature flourishes through its diversity, so do we. We need to work harder to break down the inequalities and barriers that still exist and give equal footing to all in terms of gender, race, disability, sex and society. By getting involved, citizens can make huge positive differences to the planet. We aim to give citizens the tools and resources to gain knowledge, stimulate learning, inform research and inspire informed action, to empower them to make these positive changes in the world.
The Cos4Cloud project bridges the gap between citizens, citizen observatories and technologies to provide collaborative solutions; improving the quality and quantity of data, enhancing research, saving resources, widening participation, and increasing positive environmental impact and global reach.”
Rachel Redford – Citizen Science Project Officer, The Open University, WP6 (Networking, Training and Capacity Building).
Maria Daskolia – NKUA
“In the Cos4Cloud project, we view school education as one of the key routes for accomplishing many of the citizen science’s goals along with fostering science, environmental and sustainability learning. Young people’s engagement with citizen science practice can lead to the acquisition of new content knowledge, a better appreciation of scientific research procedures through firsthand experience, and the development of key competences.
The NKUA team aims to introduce the Cos4Cloud Citizen Observatories and new technological services to school students and educational stakeholders in order to empower them to become active agents of environmental change in their own communities, through education, participation and responsible action.”
Maria Daskolia – Associate Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), PI and project manager for the NKUA, and leader of the Task of citizen science integration to school education in Cos4Cloud project.
Naya Grillia – NKUA
“Citizen science contributes to the democratization of scientific knowledge about environmental topics and sustainability issues through some novel pathways, which are realistic and accessible to all. Making citizens feel part of a big scientific family through engaging them in research processes and cultivating research skills is a learning experience per se which brings forward new prospects and opens new windows to the development of scientific literacy.
Regarding Cos4Cloud, NKUA aims to bring together citizen science and environmental education for sustainability. Our plans and challenges are to approach new target audiences of citizen scientists by conveying current citizen science practices in school populations and creating school networks at a national and European level. I expect that through such initiatives, we will bring a discourse forward about how to blend the philosophy and practice of environmental education for sustainability with citizen science projects.”
Naya Grillia – Researcher, pedagogical intervention designer, training designer in Cos4Cloud. Doctoral Researcher at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA).
Evi Kakaroucha – NKUA
“Cos4Cloud is an excellent opportunity for all of us to explore initiatives, actions, and related politics throughout Europe. From NKUA we want to help mainly young people understand the importance of their own knowledge production involvement.”
Evi Kakaroucha – Researcher, e-learning training designer, communication and networking in Cos4Cloud. MSc, MEd, MA, MSc at the Environmental Education Lab National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA).
Ann Hitchcock & Conny Müller – 52ºNorth
“We hope that the project will make science more interesting for citizens and, as a result of their involvement, they will actively participate in future scientific processes. We believe that if you involve the citizens, take their observations seriously and incorporate them into the scientific process, they are more likely to become aware of their environment and, at best, adopt their behavior accordingly, and have an impact on their respective communities.”
Ann Hitchcock: responsible for 52°North marketing and pr/communication internally and externally. At Cos4Cloud she collaborates with marketing and dissemination of the cos4cloud project activities and results.
Conny Müller: responsible for 52°North accounting and personnel administration, regarding Cos4Clous she is responsible for accounting and administrative work concerning the project.
Dorte Riemenschneider – ECSA
“Women’s Day reminds me of the long road to an equal rights society. The key is the constant breaking up of structural power dynamics. Citizen science is also a breaking of power dynamics in the field of research, benefiting women and other disadvantaged groups.”
Dorte Riemenschneider – ECSA’s managing director
Sasha Woods – EarthWatch
“If you are looking for an interesting article about Women in Science, Toos (our Science, Policy & Innovation Director) has written a blog article that you are welcome to share: “Nurturing the next generation of women in science“
Sasha Woods – Leader of WP7 (Dissemination & Exploitation). Researcher for impact and innovation at Earthwatch.
Katrin Nolland – EarthWatch
“Within Cos4Cloud I make sure we keep an eye on the deadlines, the budget is on track and we have fun while we support citizen science in Europe!”
Katrin Nolland – Project manager at Earthwatch
Demelza Ramakers – DDQ
“Citizen science is continuously growing, one of the reasons is that nowadays almost everyone has measuring equipment in his pocket: the smartphone. I am happy to participate in Cos4Cloud as the results will be collected and shared in one European open repository; that’s fantastic, as nowadays the landscape is very fragmented. I think it is essential that all results regarding a topic are collected and available in one single source.”
Demelza Ramakers – Cos4Cloud developer, experienced citizen scientist, DDQ projects’ support.
Marisol Parilla – Bineo Consulting
“Cos4Cloud is a project that will have a very positive impact on a scientific and social level. Among other services that are being worked on, Cos4Cloud will include the integration of observations from different citizen science platforms in a single portal, which will be a great contribution to carry out identifications, studies and will help promote and encourage citizen science.”
Marisol Parilla – Project Coordinator of WP4. Project coordinator at Bineo Consulting.
Rosa Arias – Science for Change
“Citizen science allows: the generation of new knowledge for the advancement of society, solving social and environmental challenges from below with the collaboration of everyone, developing new complementary methodologies to more traditional science and restoring confidence in science to science. Citizen science also allows aligning the interests of science and society by generating dialogues between different actors (such as citizens, public sector, industry, or academia), increasing transparency. At the same time increases the science education of the participants, among many other things.
Projects such as Cos4Cloud are essential to facilitate citizen science projects’ sustainability in execution, a challenge common to all of them, by providing useful tools for citizen observatories. Cos4Cloud will also position citizen science at the European level at the level of any other scientific field.”
Rosa Arias – Co-design co-leader & OdourCollect project manager. CEO & Founder of Science for Change odour expert, active participant in the COST Action of Citizen Science.
Blanca Guasch – Science for Change
“Co-design is the engine that has advanced technology for centuries. It may be a very new term, but it is nothing other than the joint and collaborative conceptualization, definition and development of the necessary tools that human beings need. In Cos4Cloud we are implementing co-design processes, methodologies and techniques to actively involve stakeholders in the design processes of eleven citizen science services. After all, everything that is designed is for society. Therefore, how could we be designing something without taking the public’s opinions into account? Thus the importance of co-design, citizen science, and a bottom-up approach as a starting point.”
Blanca Guasch, PhD. Co-design Strategic officer at Science for Change-
Alba Cecilia Sandoval – Trebola Ecological Organization
“It is crucial to achieving the democratization of knowledge as well as political incidence since the citizen is the fundamental axis to generate social transformations through collaborative work, communication, and feedback on the data obtained against the variables of analysis.”
Alba Cecilia Sandoval – Legal and administrative support of CanAirIO, legal representative of Trebola Ecological Organization, administrative, financial and pedagogical coordinator.
Alba Brobia – CREAF
“Citizen participation in research is growing, and this allows increasing and advancing scientific knowledge. In this sense, the Cos4Cloud project aims to integrate data from citizen science into the EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) ecosystem.”
Alba Brobia – Development of tools for interoperability demonstrations and reuse of citizen observatory services. Technician at CREAF and GRUMETS research group
Ester Prat – CREAF
“Scientists use more and more citizen science data, which is why it is important that this type of data is accessible from an initiative as important as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), an open repository of research data in Europe.”
Ester Prat – EOSC compliant service architecture assistant. Project Assistant at CREAF and at GRUMETS Research Group.
Anna Ramón – CREAF
“I think citizen science is a tool to explore nature and be involved in scientific research. It is also about citizen collaboration without geographical barriers. Knowledge empowers us, and citizen science is a way of learning. It makes us aware of the environment and its immense biodiversity. Awareness can also press politicians to take actions to face climate change.”
Anna Ramón – Support in the communication plan strategy and brand management. Head of communication at CREAF.
Ángela Justamante – CREAF
“Making visible women is essential to change the gender role perspectives. As a science communicator, I think one of my duties is to work on changing the collective imaginary towards an equal one. Cos4Cloud is formed by a lot of professional women that promote women’s scientific and social leadership. It is my pleasure to promote all their work and contribution to Cos4Cloud and, ultimately, to the citizen science.”
Ángela Justamante – Communication strategy, social media management & press officer in Cos4Cloud, works at CREAF.
