Cooperations for Horizon Europe - building the future of Citizen Science together. #HorizonEU
The Horizon Europe programme by the European Union is the key funding programme for EU research and innovation projects. Citizen Science and public involvement have always been a vital aspect of Horizon - both in the predecessor Horizon 2020 and now in Horizon Europe.
Among its missions, the new Horizon Europe programme supports the achievement of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), fights climate change, and integrates science into society on a larger scale. It further strengthens the impact of research and innovation within the European Union and beyond and supports the collaboration between the science sector, small-medium enterprises (SME), and society.
As an SME, we are happy to offer our know-how and services within research projects, applying for Horizon Europe grants. We already bring the experience of how Horizon project partnerships are operating with us, and we contribute actively to a proposal from the early stages.
Our central part in the proposal stage of a Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe project is to shape how a Citizen Science App integrates seamlessly in the research and creates innovation and participation opportunities for the public, together with the coordinator and the consortium. With years of experience in Citizen and Community Science and the development and maintenance of digital tools and the underlying infrastructure, we bring this know-how to a consortium and strengthen the proposal by a practical approach on how applications and software can benefit the project. Our strong focus on digital ethics and user privacy further helps the proposal with undertaking the complex topics of data protection, GDPR, and intellectual property rights in a digital environment.
Our main task in a Citizen Science work package in a Horizon Europe project is to provide participatory Apps and digital tools, which will be available for the public to take part in the project. To achieve an innovative and immersive integration of an interested public in the research project means that Citizens are not just "used" for data collection but also find extended functionalities ready.
With SPOTTERON's strong focus on building communities and integrated communication features, we are prepared to push the border further and develop innovative ways to strengthen Citizen Science as a whole. Innovation is one of the key aspects in successful Horizon Europe proposals, also in terms of the scope of the technical solutions, playing a role in the project. Already in the proposal stage, we collaborate on what we plan to develop as new features and innovative technologies for the Citizen Science App or the digital tools in case of successful funding. This objective-driven approach allows us to specify milestones, deliverables, and our Personal Month (PM) budget reliably and reflect a thoughtful level of planning in the proposal's work packages.
Every project can apply its preferred form of licensing to all related non-personal data - as a platform, we do not interfere with the data aspect and do not claim any ownership on data. We support Open Science and Open Data policies and have procedures to release anonymized data sets to the public. For unique creative works like photographs in user-generated Content (UGC), we apply the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license for portability and unrestricted use in terms of intellectual property rights.
If you are interested in utilizing Citizen Science or user participation in your Horizon Europe project or other proposals for large research funding schemes, please get in contact! We are happy to assist with the proposal and join a consortium as an active member for projects with Citizen Science innovation.
