COESO aims to develop and sustain citizen science research in the social sciences and humanities. The consortium is a collection of 15 partners from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The project is an endeavour to bridge collaboration between the European social sciences and humanities (SSH) community, the citizen science community, as well as the open scholarly communication community.
COESO addresses specific challenges that hinder the development of citizen science in the social sciences and humanities by building a comprehensive framework that:
- Hosts citizen science pilots reflecting the variety of citizen science practices and challenges in the social sciences and humanities.
- Supports pilots with collaborative tools through a specific virtual ecosystem (‘VERA’).
- Targets funding streams needed to expand citizen science in the social sciences and humanities.
- Provides support and training to achieve public engagement in the social sciences and humanities by mutual learning.
- Produces knowledge on citizen science co-creation practices in the social sciences and humanities through a rigorous assessment protocol on collaboration challenges in the pilots.
ECSA activities and milestones
ECSA’s work in COESO centres mainly in funding advocacy, and in 2021 we co-created and co-wrote the Funding Advocacy plan:
Next steps
Throughout 2022, ECSA and Ibercivis are collaborating to develop and deliver workshops for national and international funding stakeholders to engage them in the co-creation of the VERA platform. ECSA is also supporting the ongoing pilot projects through dissemination activities.