First meeting devoted to disseminating the concept of Citizen Science in Barcelona
The Born District Cultural Centre and the Picasso Museum played host to “Barcelona Citizen Science Day”
The first open forum devoted to disseminating the concept of Citizen Science in Barcelona took place last Wednesday June 11 as part of the Festival of Science, Technology and Innovation. The goal of the event was to encourage collaboration on this new scientific methodology via the presentation of locally and internationally recognised science projects.
For the purposes of the forum, interested researchers and collectives were offered an opportunity to present their projects, which had to be either directly related to citizen science or have possible future implementations within this field.
Projects of this nature which have a significant impact on the global scientific community are promoted by the Creativity and Innovation Directorate of the Barcelona City Council via the BcnLab Citizen Science Office, which brings together a number of research teams with one common purpose—to establish a meeting point between the specific scientific objectives of each organisation and the need to share the methodology, the information gathered and the results obtained with a significant sector the population.
The forum was coordinated by the BcnLab Citizen Science Office and the Open Systems research team of the University of Barcelona with the support of the Foundation for Science and Technology and RecerCaixa.
The event was organised as part of the festival’s Citizen Science section. By way of clarification, Citizen Science is a means of implicating citizens in scientific research tasks by using 2.0 smartphone technologies to disseminate knowledge typically restricted to certain special-interest groups. Citizen Science initiatives require solid research projects that pose questions of relevance and interest to the general public.
In addition to this forum, the Citizen Science section of the festival has scheduled the following activities for the coming weekend:
- AtrapaelTigre.com (“Catch the Tiger”)
- An innovative citizen science project aimed at combatting the tiger mosquito.
- On Thursday, June 12 in the CCCB and Saturday and Sunday, June 14 and 15, as part of the celebrations in the Parc de la Ciutadella.
- Urban Mobility Experiments
- A series of subtle interventions performed over three days in the Beta Station.
- From June 13 to 15 in the CCCB.
- Mr. Banks, the stock market game
- An entertaining game in which participants try to predict market fluctuations based on financial market information provided.
- Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 as part of the celebrations taking place in the Parc de la Ciutadella.
More information: http://festivalcti.bcn.cat/ciencia-ciutadana/