Overview and resources of the GROMADA-CitiObs workshops for environmental citizen science in Ukraine

Why this initiative?

This action-oriented series of initiatives aims to foster concrete action taking for the planning and implementation of hands-on citizen science initiatives in Ukraine by bringing together EU and Ukrainian experts and citizens! Moving beyond one-off and disconnected approaches to action taking, we envisage forging a sustainable and solid pathway made of networking and solid collaborations to advance hands-on citizen science initiatives in Ukraine.

The GROMADA team behind this initiative is composed of Katerina Zourou (Web2Learn), Anna Berti Suman (Systasis), Kateryna Boichenko (Web2Learn) and Stefania Oikonomou (Web2Learn), while the CitiObs team is represented by Margaret Gold (Leiden University) and Nuria Castell (NILU).

GROMADA-CitiObs online workshop

On June 14, 2024, the GROMADA and CitiObs teams carried out the online workshop “Time for action! Citizen science for environmental justice in Ukraine”!

This action-oriented workshop was the first in a series of environmental citizen science actions for Ukraine! The actions will include hands-on initiatives as well as online “reflection” and brainstorming sessions to explore the specificities of doing citizen science in a conflict zone.

Open access resources:

Berti Suman, A., Rojas, G., Panico, F. (2024). Mapping gaps and opportunities: Community engagement through civic environmental monitoring and environmental citizen science in Ukraine. GROMADA consortium. https://gromada-erasmus.eu/publications/mapping-gaps-and-opportunities-wp2a1/
Paper: Soroka, M., Bailiuk, Y. & Amborsova, A. (2024). Ukrainian citizen science initiatives for environmental justice and recovery actions. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.31795.64803.
June 14 workshop slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J4GvERV7F_bcmKtwF7HrVW_D4EHRCiSR/view?usp=drive_link

GROMADA-CitiObs workshop at ECSA 2024

On April 5, 2024, the GROMADA and CitiObs teams organised a physical workshop titled “Joining forces to meet the needs of (environmental) citizen science in conflict zones”, in the framework of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) Conference 2024 in Vienna, Austria.

During the workshop, Katerina Zourou, Anna Berti Suman, Margaret Gold and Nuria Castell: 1) presented to participants selected cases of citizen science deployed during the Russo-Ukrainian war; 2) asked participants to reflect in a proactive manner on which needs and knowledge/resources gaps these communities may face; and 3) called participants to elaborate on strategies to respond to these needs as representatives of different ‘worlds’ (e.g., participants from academia; from ECSA; for a citizen science initiative).

Open access resources:

2 videos on citizen science initiatives in Ukraine (1 & 2) by the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine (NECU).
1 video on the status of citizen science initiatives in Ukraine by Maksym Soroka, Ph.D, associate professor of Environmental and Civil Safety Department, Ukrainian State University of Science and Technology.
Berti Suman, A., Zourou, K., Oikonomou, S., Gold, M., & Castell, N. (2024). Joining forces to meet the needs of (environmental) citizen science in conflict zones. European Citizen Science Conference 2024, Vienna, Austria. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10924956

Contacts

Interested to join our initiative? Add your contact details here!

This doc is created as a common space for networking and collaboration between EU and Ukrainian colleagues.