Including citizen science in an ecology congress will be a great opportunity to vindicate this way of working doing research with and for the citizens.
CREAF and BETA Technology Center bring citizen science to the next congress of SIBECOL and AEET
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CREAF and BETA Technology Center (UVIC-UCC), two entities with extensive experience in citizen science projects collaborate to organize a special session dedicated to this topic at the III Congress of the Iberian Society of Ecology (SIBECOL) and the XVII National Congress of the Spanish Association of Terrestrial Ecology (AEET), to be held in Pontevedra from June 2 to 7, 2025.
Being able to network among citizen science projects in the field of ecology, make them visible and give them a place in a scientific congress is key to their momentum and value.
“Citizen science has been and is present in conferences and congresses on environmental education, citizen participation, science transfer... because citizen science is much more than research. However, including citizen science in an ecology congress was a pending issue in the Iberian area. This will be a great opportunity to vindicate this way of working doing research with and for the citizens”, Pau Fortuño, CREAF research technician specializing in citizen science.
Under the title Beyond the Lab: Citizen Science as a Catalyst for Ecological Research and Community Involvement, this session seeks to highlight the transformative role of citizen science as a tool for ecological research and community involvement, and to generate a space for reflection within the scientific community.
Technical staff and volunteers of the uBMS project in Parc del Carmel carrying out transects to study urban butterfly populations in Barcelona. Image: Galdric Mossoll
Creation day of the AlertaForestal workshop on the boxwood caterpillar in Can Balasc. Image: Galdric Mossoll
Volunteers participating in the Bioblitz organized by CREAF in the Vallparadís Park in Terrassa. Image: Gerard Gaya
“Being able to network among citizen science projects in the field of ecology, make them visible and give them a place in a scientific congress is key to their momentum and value. SIBECOL's desire this year to promote changes in vision and ways of doing things, with the title “Another science is possible”, was an opportunity that citizen science in the Peninsula could not miss”, Laura Force, Citizen Science and Environmental Education Technician.
The call for papers for this session is now open, and researchers and professionals with experience in the field are invited to send their proposals for oral presentations or posters through the conference website before December 20, 2024.
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