loading . . . PReCISE (Promoting Citizen Science Expertise) summer school – summary and lessons These are notes from the first day of the summer school at Université de Louvain (UCLouvain) on 7-11 July 2025 in Louvain-la-Neuve, and funded by Circle-U university alliance. The course included teachers from the University of Amsterdam, Aarhus University, University Paris Cité, University of Vienna, and UCLouvain.
**Jaqui Goldin** provided the first talk, exploring the ethics and practice of citizen science – and the principles of doing citizen science. Ethics as a set of moral principles that guide human actions, Jaqui pointed that values can be shared by artists, leaders and researchers. Ethics is what is right and what is wrong – there are different levels: personal, household, researcher, member of an organisation, citizen, etc. The 10 principles that she suggested for practitioners: low cost technology and appropriate instruments; second iterative training – slowly and repeating; one size doesn’t fit all and adapt to their needs; Verification, validation and visible – important to make the results visible; appreciate multiple stakeholders and the meshwork of relationships in the places where you are; share finding; methods to capture voice – art, voice etc.; recognition of champions and the people who become pattionate; cultural diversity; and purpose of making science accessible. The Diversity Research Umbrella Manual (DRUM) provides methods to give voice https://doy-community.sites.uu.nl/wp-content/uploads/sites/918/2025/03/Drum_presentation-Small.pdf
Jaqui Goldin message to participants Jaqui’s 10 principles for practitioners
**Gitte Kragh** covered the 10 principles of citizen science, going through each of them. Gitte emphasised the need to recognise that genuine science outcomes can take many shapes. In principle 3, the benefits can take different forms – from those that mostly benefit the scientists (data) to projects that benefit the community. Through covering different types of projects, Gitte demonstrated how the principles are implemented in different projects.
Gitte introducing participants to the motivation, while hybrid participants are sharing their questions online on the screen
**Didone Figerio** ran the session on the citizen scientists, starting with interest in birds in the 1850s, to make the school students think about how to do things when technology was not available. The postcards of bird observations were a serious and effective way to share and gather information. Observing natural phenomena that have also been going on for a very long time, with reporting to national or research bodies. In ornithology and natural phenomena, there is a sharing of knowledge between people. In the digital period, Foldit provides an example of the power of the internet (e.g. Galaxy Zoo) and the creativity of scientists, and working with other researchers in other areas. It was done through gamification. The participants then use case studies of citizen science projects (about half of them from Belgium) to explore questions about the challenge that was explored and identify who the citizen scientists and consider the added value.
Didone guiding participants through an hybrid post-it exercise
After lunch, **Cléa Montenary and I** covered the history and complex terminology of the field of citizen science and introduced four typologies (Shirk et al. 2012, Wiggins and Crowston 2013, Strasser et al, and Haklay, Mazumdar and Wardlaw 2018). We then followed by group work of participants who took different citizen science case studies that we have prepared for the summer school (such as WeCount, Isala, Leichens GO, etc.) and analysed how they would map to different typologies.
Cléa introduces her personal journey to citizen science
The second day started with **Gitte Kragh** covering the motivation and participation of citizen scientists in projects. Students explored the disrupters and enablers of participation.
Steve Bers guide participants through science communication for citizen science
**Jef Van Laer, Karen Verstraelen and Steve Bers** from SCivil covered aspects of science communication in the context of citizen science. An example of a very well-communicated project is Isala, which got many more participants than planned. Potential ways of carrying out communication activities for the project, such as the use of social media or stickers in the street. Scivil have a guide on communication in citizen science. Science communication and citizen science are intertwined but there are differences. They are both about informing people, but in CS it also try to get action: train, mobilise, and engage. To achieve that, you can have a communication plan instead of just getting to the project without considering it. The first thing in the communication plan is to clarify the project goals and why citizen science needs to play a part. How does it fit into the project and what is the added value. We can define the level of involvement that we want, from collecting information and data, but it is also possible to ask people to suggest research questions. There is a need to define the target audience and to map the motivation of the participants in the project. Then there is a need to engage and evaluate, not only to evaluate at the end, and consider follow-up during and after the project. Some recommended approaches include surfing the wave of existing networks, projects can link to existing societies and local history networks. Providing an enjoyable and fun experience to participants, such as bringing people to a historical building or special tours. Social media is also a powerful tool for engagement and outreach. Especially using interesting events and outcomes, for example, training people on how to find and identify spiders. Storytelling is a very good way of engaging and communicating. For example, if an interesting discovery is made during digitalisation, it can show how the work is interesting. This is also connected to gemification. The working with ambassadors or community volunteers who are becoming highly involved, they can spread the word. Consider how to keep things clear and uniform, how to connect it to relevant events and news. The guide of SCivil is at https://www.scivil.be/sites/default/files/paragraph/files/2020-01/Scivil%20Communication%20Guide.pdf
The afternoon session, led by Noelia Valderrama focused on the data quality issues such as technology and material choice, secondly, the field setup and standardisation, thirdly, having some reference data and validation, and finally, data gathering and integrity. Different groups worked on these aspects of three projects – ATRAP, Lichens GO, and CurieuzeNeuzen projects and explored the data quality aspects of these projects.
Considering data quality in **CurieuzenAir** through a game Noelia explains aspects of data quality
The third day started with a discussion about successful and unsuccessful project, especially with identifying points of failure that can cause a problem of total failure of a project. Didone led the discussion, with Gitte and I contributing examples of failed projects.
The last session of training explored the issue of trust in citizen science. **Mercy Ashept** led the session with the participants looking at three projects (ATRAP, Increase, and noise mapping) using their assessment to consider if they find the project successful. They rank projects from trustworthy to not. By considering the point of view of the public, the scientists, and the policy makers, it was possible to consider different factors that would influence the trustworthiness of the project.
Mercy discuss with participants their observations
The fourth day (and my last day of participation in the summer school) included covering, in depth, four projects. First, Mercy covered her analysis of participation in Global South projects and ATTRAP, then Jaqui covered the Diamond in the sole of their shoes project, Caroline covered HARISSA, and finally I covered Extreme Citizen Science and the applications of Sapelli. The projects showed common challenges of technology and the use of it in the field (breakage, theft) etc. Additional questions of ethics, political context, and other commonality were explored. Following that, the participants analysed the challenges (social, economic, and political) and the keys to implementation and potential solutions in the projects
**Reflections of the summer school**
First, the **use of case studies** , especially those where some of the teachers have a deep knowledge of, is very effective. Over the days of the summer school, the participants looked at these case studies and addressed different facets (engagement, motivation, working in Global South context). The case studies and the ability to learn more about them were an effective way to have well-worked examples of citizen science projects that the participants can explore and learn from. Instead of having preliminary ideas about potential projects, the case studies were more solid learning and teaching material. It is possible to prepare detailed case studies that address all the issues that are covered in the school, but even if they are not completely comprehensive, it is possible to find more information from the person who knows about it in the room or online.
Second, the **mix of participants – including many PhD students, researchers, and academics** – worked well. The questions ranged from the very practical to the philosophical ones. As with all the previous summer schools that I joined, the several days of concentrated learning, longer coffee and lunch breaks, and group work created enough time for people to connect with each other and build an ability to respect each other views. There was a very large interdisciplinary mix, as is common in citizen science – from sociology to natural sciences and engineering. It was also very impressive to have about 55 participants – about 35 in the room and another 10 to 20 online.
Third, **the potential and limitation of “discount hybridity”.** Luckily, the room of the summer school was set up for hybrid teaching, including two large screens, several microphones in the room and four self-focusing cameras. To make the summer school more accessible, we accepted remote students who can join online. As always with technologies, there are limitations and complexities – such as limitations in break-up rooms that require switching between Teams and Zoom. Running a hybrid course require to physically consider online participants (so standing and talking at some specific points in the room) as well as dedicated effort from the teaching team – we needed a person from the teaching team to be online and respond to the online participants – it was helpful to have the chat appearing on the screen so we can refer to it during discussions and from time to time allow online participants to join in. With an investment of design by Gitte, a MIRO board was created to allow collaboration and contributions from the online participants, and during the breakout sessions, a member of the teaching team was online to support the discussion of online participants. All in all, it means that it is possible but require a resource of two of the teaching team and a room set up that supports it. It was important not to compromise the face to face experience – see the data quality games.
To allow participants an opportunity to explore their own projects, we set out two mentoring sessions and maybe it is useful to have an explicit session at the end or a follow up calls – we’ll see.
A fourth observation is that **having a good facility** at UCLouvain helped a lot – we had breakout rooms and space for coffee and discussion throughout the summer school. The coffee area included fruit, biscuits and other lovely things that the UCLouvain team organised. Those aspects are important in creating a good atmosphere and giving the participants in the summer school a good opportunity to talk with other students or the tutors. The lunches also provided the time for such discussion, and as frequently happens, people become more relaxed and willing to explore issues with the teachers on the course by the end of the second day, and also starting to make cross connections between participants. Discussions over dinner, coffee, or beer are always good. It is actually those things that make a summer school and immersive and intensive learning experience.
Fifth, I have noticed in the past year the increased willingness of trainers to **use game and game-like tools in the process of learning**. They do require planning, dedicated printing (card games) and props such as printed map, a playing dice etc. But they are creating an engaging and enjoyable session – especially suitable for a summer school.
The ATRAP game
Sixth, be aware that many participants in such a summer school **never participated in a citizen science activity**. While we included in the third day a session for experiencing citizen science (iNat, noise mapping, accessibility mapping with Wheelmap and Google Local Guides), in hindsight that could be a preparatory activity to ensure that people have some experience and ability to think like participants.
The summer school was funded by a grant from **Circle U.** a university alliance that is part of a programme of facilitating knowledge exchange between universities across the European Union. Caoline Michellier, who led the project, was interested in raising awareness to citizen science at UCLouvain because of the apparent weakness of citizen science visibility and activities in Volunia (in comparison to Brussels or Flanders, where there is support and some outstanding projects). The summer school demonstrated the sharing of expertise across the university alliance and the ability to bring expertise. The activity also helped in making people at UCLouvain aware of citizen science and it helped in making people in different parts of the university aware of this area and its potential. Following the model of TIME4CS, this might be the first stage in encouraging institutional support at UCLouvain.
Running a summer school is a high effort and intense investment – it requires planning, session development, creation of class activities and case studies. The logistics are also complex and it was done in an excellent, welcoming, and seamless manner by the UCLouvain team. There is now a LinkedIn group for the people who participated and I hope that it will help in developing citizen science at the university.
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### _Related_ https://povesham.wordpress.com/2025/07/11/precise-promoting-citizen-science-expertise-summer-school-summary-and-lessons/
