The CitieS-Health Project Receives an Honorary Mention in the European Union Citizen Science Award

The EU-funded CitieS-Health project, led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), has received an Honorary Mention in the European Union Prize for Citizen Science. Now in its first edition, the award recognises European citizen science initiatives that promote change, increase knowledge and demonstrate innovative open science processes through the empowerment of civil society.

CitieS-Health was aimed at placing citizens' concerns at the heart of public health and urban environment research. The project was implemented in five European countries, including Spain, Slovenia, Italy, Lithuania and the Netherlands, where five different citizen science projects were successfully implemented, with active involvement of citizens in all phases of the project. All five initiatives provided new scientific evidence on the links between different environmental exposures and health outcomes, which was published in scientific journals and widely disseminated.

"This is a tribute to the dedication and enthusiasm of all the citizens who took part in the project. Citizen science is a powerful tool for involving society in research and decision-making, and this is an example of the impact we can have together," says Xavier Basagaña, coordinator of CitieS-Health.

Raül Toran, Head of Science Outreach at ISGlobal and coordinator of communication and dissemination for CitieS-Health, explains that "the project is innovative because it addresses environmental issues such as air pollution, noise, sport and urban design and their impact on health, with full citizen involvement, from framing the research question to experimental design, data collection, analysis and feedback of results." In addition, to inspire the design of future citizen science projects, the team developed the CitieS-Health Citizen Science Toolkit. 

The project was funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and involved, in addition to ISGlobal, Ideas for Change (Spain), the Jožef Stefan Institute (Slovenia), Epidemiologia & Prevenzione (Italy), Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania) and Utrecht University (The Netherlands).

Scientific breakthroughs with citizen participation

The European Union Prize for Citizen Science is part of the large-scale IMPETUS project and is open to scientific and social initiatives involving citizens and aimed at achieving scientific progress and social benefits, supporting communities and promoting an open and inclusive civil society.

The award ceremony will take place in September 2023 at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.