The European project SOCIO-BEE presented its objectives and strategies for building communities around citizen science projects, in the framework of the Ecsite conference 2023, the big event for the engagement of science professionals that took place at the end of June 2023.
Among the activities, meetings and presentations of the conference, the round table "Ethics and politics in citizen science. Ten years on from the publication of the White Paper on Citizen Science for Europe", which told through the experience of several citizen science projects the development of this methodology after 10 years of publication of the White Paper on Citizen Science, a document that laid the foundations and challenges of citizen science in Europe in 2013.
Moderated by Diana Escobar, Head of the Barcelona Ciència programme at the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona, it was attended by Dacha Atienza, Scientific Director at the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona and member of the programming committee, and Ibercivis Foundation team members Maite Pelacho, Francisco Sanz and Daniel Lisbona.
The challenges posed by the White Paper for the development of citizen science methodologies in Europe was the common thread of the round table, and the examples of projects such as the Bioblitzs that are carried out annually at the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, or the innovation strategies for the construction of communities around the European project SOCIO-BEE served to situate citizen science in Europe at a point of maturity and to demonstrate its usefulness in bringing citizens together through science in projects that bring them closer to satisfying their concerns or solving the problems of their immediate environment with evidence-based solutions.
Those attending the round table -science communication specialists, project managers, science content creators, researchers and exhibition space managers- were able to learn about some of the keys that the SOCIO-BEE project has proposed when communicating its activity and achievements, where the emphasis on its own well-defined narrative -the metaphor of the beehive as a map of all the actors involved in the project- is becoming increasingly important, as well as the communication and engagement strategies that motivate participants in each of the project's stages.
In addition, SOCIO-BEE was also present in networking sessions where the importance of the project could be highlighted in face-to-face conversations with professionals from science communication, museums and exhibition spaces and managers of citizen science projects from countries such as Mexico, Colombia or Serbia, among others.
You can consult the presentation of the project in the Ecsite Conference clicking here.
