An increasing number of citizen science projects and initiatives are being implemented across Europe – mostly taking place at local or national levels, but some also being co-ordinated internationally. This rapidly emerging mode of research and innovation shows substantial potential in terms of achieving greater societal impact and increasing trust in science, by leveraging collective societal capabilities, by enlarging the scope of the R&I, and by increasing relevance, responsiveness and transparency. However, national or regional policies to support and mainstream them, if they exist, are in many countries at an early stage of development. Europe would benefit from greater attention to promoting citizen science within Member States and regions, and from greater cooperation and shared approaches across the European Research Area as a whole.
Objective and members
The MLE aims to facilitate an exchange of information, experiences and lessons learned, as well as to identify good practices, policies and programmes in relation to the various approaches at local, regional and national levels, towards supporting and scaling up citizen science. In addition, the objective is to identify citizen science campaigns that have high potential to be implemented in a collaborative way across the European Research Area.
Numerous EU countries are involved in this MLE: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden take part.
Topics
Within a year, several MLE meetings are held on five selected topics:
- Topic 1: Introduction and overview on citizen science
- Topic 2: Ensuring good practices and impacts
- Topic 3: Maximising the relevance and excellence of citizen science
- Topic 4: Enabling environments and sustaining citizen science
- Topic 5: Scaling up citizen science
MLE in June in Vienna
From June 7-8, 2022, MLE member countries came to Vienna to exchange ideas on topic 4 "Enabling environments and sustaining citizen science". You can find a short review HERE.
Reports
All thematic reports resulting from the meetings are available on the EU website, including the report on topic 4.