Brussels, 30 January 2025 – The RIECS-Concept project (Towards A Pan-European Research Infrastructure For Excellent Citizen Science) has officially launched, marking a major step toward strengthening citizen science in Europe. Co-coordinated by Ibercivis and ECSA, the initiative brings together partners from Spain, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Italy, Serbia, Lithuania, and Switzerland to develop a concept for a robust and sustainable research infrastructure that integrates both citizen-contributed and scientific resources.
RIECS-Concept will lay the foundation for the world’s first comprehensive infrastructure of its kind, addressing key challenges such as fragmentation of data, projects, platforms and funding and the need for interoperability of resources within the citizen science landscape. The project will deliver two primary outcomes: a conceptual design and feasibility study and a five-year implementation plan, ensuring a structured and sustainable approach to developing this new research infrastructure. At the kickoff meeting in Brussels, project partners, joined by the European Commission’s Project Officer Katharina Buse, discussed key objectives, upcoming tasks, collaboration and long-term strategies. Funded under the HORIZON-INFRA-2024-DEV-01-01 call which supports the development of new concepts for research infrastructures of European interest, RIECS-Concept represents a flagship effort in advancing excellence in participatory research. More details, including project updates and upcoming events, will be shared soon.
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LinkedIn:
@RIECS-Concept
@Fundacion Ibercivis
@ECSA – European Citizen Science Association
@CSIC – Agencia estatal consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas
@EMBIMOS Research Group (ICM-CSIC)
@OeAD-GmbH – Agentur fur Bildung and Internationalisierung
@Zentrum fur soziale Innovation
@Ars Electronica
@International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
@Malmo University
@Universita degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
@Centar za promociju nauke
@VILNIUS TECH
@Citizen Science Global Partnership (CSGP)
@citizensciencezh