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Co-using Apps together, and new funding opportunities for Citizen Science

Co-using Apps together, and new funding opportunities for Citizen Science

 

Bonjour Visitor, 

A new Program enabling Co-Use of Citizen Science Apps, the Draft Horizon Europe Work Programme, and more exciting News!

We have a big announcement: to improve long-term stability and further extend the impact and reach of Citizen Science, there is a new toolkit available for enabling multiple actors to work together in Citizen Science Apps: the Co-Use Program. You can furthermore find the monthly compile of great funding calls and exciting conferences. Read more about the extended possibilities on the SPOTTERON Platform and find the updated funding and conference list right in this newsletter...

Collaboration in Citizen Science Apps - the SPOTTERON Co-Use Program

It can be difficult for projects to secure enough funding to run and support an interactive digital-social toolkit in a project budget, especially for smaller initiatives. 

This is where the SPOTTERON Co-Use program provides a viable solution for citizen science and public engagement projects. The SPOTTERON Co-Use program currently already covers a wider range of themes, from arts and culture to social citizen science to coastal and marine observations, as well as invasive species monitoring and climate action. If your project crosses over with a co-use theme, joining an existing Citizen Science App as a partner brings you all the benefits but minimizes the costs and risks.


Multi-Language Capabilities Across Citizen Science Projects

Multi-language capabilities have been extended on the SPOTTERON Citizen Science App Platform. From multiple translations of Project Apps, the platform also supports direct multi-language communication by sending direct messages to all participating citizens. Extended language capabilities have also been integrated in the platform's toolkit for international citizen science projects, which allows researchers and consortiums to access data per country and now communicate with the participants in their native languages through outreach messages and integrated pop-ups.


The 2026/2027 Horizon Europe Work Programmes - Draft Versions Publicly Available and Includes Public Engagement & Citizen Science

When one project calendar year is turning to the end soon, another is on the horizon! The Horizon Europe Work Programmes for 2026-2027 are in the making and for the first time the draft versions are publicly available. We took a look at the recent draft documents which are available under the European Commission's Comitology Register. 

 



Art & Citizen Science - Seaweed Poetry

Along the art-based adventures, the COSEA App, funded by Horizon Europe and running on the SPOTTERON Citizen Science App Platform, has been involved in an initiative called #FindWhereFound. The roots of this initiative lies in Ireland – where a team from University College Cork in cooperation with colleagues from Portugal and us here in Austria, developed an ocean literacy activity which involves art-based herbarium specimens of seaweeds from coastal areas of Ireland. 

 

The art-based herbarium in public venues is accompanied by an activity for the public to co-create an 11-word poem - #SeaweedPoetry. The participants are invited to make a poem guided by a self-selected seaweed herbarium specimen and a question: How do you feel when you are near an ocean or sea? The recent expo of 40 art-works took place at European Maritime Day in Cork, Ireland. Although we were not present ourselves there we loved the end results and contributed with designing postcards and posters to accompany the activity.

 



ArtSpots App: A Long-Running Community App on Public Art and Citizen Science

Recently SPOTTERON took part in contributing to a book chapter entitled: "Connecting People and the Ocean Through Street Art and Citizen Science". The chapter was published in a book "Blue Kinships: An Exploration of Society & the Ocean" edited by Chiara Certoma.We have contributed our insights on Citizen Science Apps and spotlighted the potential of ArtSpots App.

 

The interactive ArtSpots App allows the growing user community to share public art sightings and experiences, and includes a wide range of art categories.

 



General Assembly 2025 of the Horizon 2020 MINAGRIS Project in Vienna

From October 1st to October 3rd, the MINAGRIS General Assembly was held at the Head Office of AGES in Vienna, Austria, bringing together researchers, partners, and people who worked together on the project from all over Europe. Over the course of three days, participants exchanged project updates, talked about major discoveries, and collaborated on the next steps in understanding the effects of plastics on our soils - a crucial topic for sustainable agriculture and research.

 

An essential part of the MINAGRIS outreach and citizen engagement strategy is the SoilPlastic App, developed by SPOTTERON. The App allows farmers, researchers, and citizens to record observations of plastic debris in agricultural soils directly from the field.

 


‍Conferences and Funding Opportunities we found

‍As we regularly come across excellent project funding opportunities and conference calls for our internal list, we’ve decided to share these updates with you in our newsletters and on our website from now on. The range of topics covers everything from Citizen Science and public engagement, as well as nature conservation, or even art calls. The list may also include interesting niche themes and opportunities, or other occasions we stumble upon. We hope this helps!

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Conferences & events

Title Date Date for submissions Location
Webinar: Crowdsourcing for Flood Risk Management: Harnessing Community Data and Local Knowledge 9 December 2025   Online
Citizen Science Fair at Museo delle Scienze di Trento (MUSE) 14 December 2025   Italy
Horizon Europe info days - Cluster 6 22 - 23 January 2026   Hybrid
The CS-NL networking day 29 January 2026   The Netherlands
The Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2026 24 - 26 February 2026   Austria
European Ocean Days 2026 2 - 6 March 2026   Belgium
ECSA 2026 Conference Oulu 3 - 6 March 2026   Finland
2026 Botanical Bridges Congress 20 - 24 April 2026   Dominican Republic
The EGU General Assembly 2026 3 - 8 May 2026 15 January 2026 Austria
6th Ecosystem Services Partnership Europe Conference 18 - 22 May 2026 31 December 2025 Czechia
European Science Engagement Association Conference 19 - 21 May 2026 1 December 2025 Luxembourg
European Maritime Day 2026 21 - 22 May 2026   Cyprus
The 47th Annual Conference of the Society of Ethnobiology 20 - 23 May 2026   USA
THALASSA 2026 – Marine Sciences Conference 21 - 22 May 2026   Cyprus
2026 Conference for Advancing the Participatory Sciences 26 - 29 May 2026   Online
UArtic Congress 2026 26 - 29 May 2026 15 December Faroe Islands
2026 Ecsite Conference 2 - 4 June 2026   Belgium
The Festival of the New European Bauhaus 9 - 13 June 2026   Belgium
Living Knowledge (LK11) Conference 7 - 10 July 2026 15 December 2025
10 January 2026
Poland
The International Society of Ethnobiology Congress 26 - 29 July 2026   Australia
The Canadian Knowledge Mobilization Forum (CKF) 28 - 30 July 2026   Canada
ECSA 61 - Bridging the gap between science and policy in estuarine and coastal marine biodiversity: the way forward 24 - 27 August 2026   Belgium
CommOCEAN 2 - 3 September 2026   Norway
Soils for Europe Conference 7 - 11 September 2026   Portugal
EASST2026 8 - 11 September 2026 28 February 2026 Poland
Ars Electronica Festival 9 - 13 September 2026   Austria
The World Conference on Marine Biodiversity 17 - 20 November 2026 17 March 2026 Belgium
31st Congress of the European Society for Rural Sociology July 2027   The Netherlands
12th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens 3 - 7 July 2028   The Netherlands

 

Funding opportunities and Programs

Title Date Program Range
Understanding Science Funding 30 November 2025 Vienna Business Agency Austria
The Seed Grant Call 2026 Expected in November 2025 Competence Center Citizen Science / Citizen Science Zurich Switzerland
6th REINFORCING Open Call (Incubators Call) on “Responsible Innovation” 2 December 2025 REINFORCING Open Call Europe
ASI Seed Money 2 December 2025 ASI Seed Money & Innovation Research Booster 2025 Europe
Knowledge Synthesis Grants 2 December 2025 Knowledge Synthesis Grants Canada
Third call - Interreg Danube Region Programme 15 December 2025 Danube Region Programme Europe
EASST Fund 31 December 2025 European Association for the Study of Science and Technology Fund European region
First Nation Adapt Program Ongoing basis First Nation Adapt Program Canada
Climate Change and Health Adaptation Program North Ongoing basis Climate Change and Health Adaptation Program North Canada
Scientific Exchanges grants All year round The Scientific Exchanges funding scheme Switzerland
Community building fund Continuous Community building fund - S4S Europe
Principal Investigator Projects Rolling Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Europe
Arts-Based Research (PEEK) Rolling Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Europe
Peatlands and Natura Community Engagement Scheme 2026 9 January 2026 The Peatlands and Natura Community Engagement Scheme (PNCES) Ireland
The 7th IKI Small Grants ‘Call for Proposals’ 15 January 2026 IKI Small Grants Global
The IKI Medium Grants Ideas competition 20 January 2026 IKI Medium Grants Global
Community Water Development Fund 2026 20 January 2026 The Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO) Ireland
NERC: pushing the frontiers of environmental research 21 January 2026 Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) UK
FTI-Projekte: Angewandte Forschung 2025 18 February 2026 FTI-Projekte Austria
FTI-Partnerschaften 2025 20 February 2026 FTI-Projekte Austria
Medium, small and p2p projects 28 February 2026 INTERREG VI-A Bavaria-Austria 2021-2027 Europe
Community Heritage Grant Scheme March 2026 Heritage Council Scheme Ireland
Biodiversa+ “Restoration of ecosystem functioning, integrity, and connectivity” referred to as BiodivConnect 14 April 2026 Biodiversa+ (full proposal) Europe
DFF-Research Project1 29 April 2026 DFF Denmark
FRONTIERS Science Journalism Residency Program (round 3) 7 May 2026 FRONTIERS Europe
“Future sustainable socio-ecological systems: trajectories of change” (#BiodivFuture) November 2026 The sixth Biodiversa+ annual joint call for research Europe

 

Other

Title Date (for submission)
World Soil Day 5 December 2025
International Mountain Day 11 December 2025
Special Collection: Citizen Science for Evidence-based Policy and Decision-Making 15 December 2025
EASST Awards 2026 31 December 2025
Submit your urban green stewardship project 17 February 2026
International Day of Forests 21 March 2026
Marine Protected Area Day 1 August 2026

 



Thank you, and all the best from Vienna!

Your SPOTTERON Citizen Science Team


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