Dr. Gitte Kragh
Candidate for the Board of Directors
“As a volunteer in the late 90’s, I collected data on nesting sea turtles in Costa Rica. That was a transformative experience – not so much the volunteering itself (I had volunteered before), but the realization that I could make a difference through the combination of volunteering and research.
The difference volunteer experiences can make for people, nature and society is immense. When we augment this impact through public participation in our research projects, much more can be achieved. But it requires that we leave the comfort of our own disciplines, reach out to policy makers, funders, NGOs and the private sector, engage with civil society and build strong networks. I believe diverse networks provide resilience and opportunities for the knowledge sharing, collaboration and advocacy that we need to reach the quadruple helix stakeholders and truly make a difference. I continue working for this through my involvement in ECSA and other CS working groups, national and European CS projects, the Danish Citizen Science Network, as CS ambassador in the ECS project and Board member of ECSA for the past three years – a role I would enjoy continuing in for the next three years, putting my experiences from NGOs, private sector and academia to good use for ECSA and CS.
I believe ECSA has a central role to play in the global CS network. As the European reference point for CS for all stakeholders, knowledge broker and facilitator bringing the European CS community together, and spearheading the effort to further embed CS at the EU-level in e.g. funding programmes and policies, and I would like to continue working for this as a Board member of ECSA. Together we can achieve this!“
