Here comes a gentle reminder of SLUs mailing list for citizen science, and the possibility to use it for information sharing and networking. Feel free to forward this email to new and old colleagues that may be interested in joining. Furthermore, now is the time to influence the dialogue and upcoming report concerning citizen science at the university.
Link for new members to register
Citizen Science at SLU
SLU is an important actor in the rapidly growing field of citizen science research, both nationally and internationally. The university hosts a unique breadth of about 40 citizen science-related projects distributed across different campuses and subject disciplines. Projects are listed on the internal citizen science web page. If you wish to update or add to the list, feel free to contact project leader Mari Jönsson. Also, do not forget to make your citizen science project visible nationally via www.medborgarforskning.se and within EU's databases!
EMA Council Project
From 2018 to 2022, the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Council (Fomar) has tasked SLU Swedish Species Information Centre with reviewing existing citizen science within the university. The project’s aim has been to facilitate citizen science activities and make the field known to new potential users and performers. In the long term, SLU should strengthen and make visible its position in contributing to society's need for open data and science. Here, citizen science plays an important role.
A survey- and interview-driven investigation was carried out in 2019 and concluded that SLU should create a central resource for citizen science. This resource should build capacity around citizen science within the university, find synergies between different parts and disciplines of SLU, find new areas of development and collaboration, and function as a meeting place and source of information and support. In 2020 and 2021, several workshops and seminars took place. These activities focused on building capacity within research, education and environmental monitoring and assessment. For example, they discussed legal issues and GDPR, ethics, communication, and the role of SLU's library.
This autumn, earlier activities and outcomes within the project will be synthesized into a final report. The aim is to provide recommendations for how SLU should develop conditions and resources for citizen science and facilitate citizens' participation in research, environmental analysis and education.
If you have information to share or want to discuss aspects or issues to include in the final report regarding SLU's citizen science, do not hesitate to get in contact with any of us.
Kind regards,
Mari Jönsson and Karl Lundén