Blog
News list
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AI as an Ally: Reimagining Artificial Intelligence for Inclusive Citizen Science
How can we use AI to amplify citizens' voices, foster dialogue, and enable more inclusive participation in scientific research? This was the central question of our workshop at the ECSA Conference 2026, which we organized together with ETH Zurich.
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Research-based Teaching with Citizen Science: Chances and Challenges for Future Skills in Higher Education
Integrating research-based teaching with Citizen Science at the BA and MA level introduces a wide range of learning opportunities. In this post, Melanie Brand discusses insights based on the 19-months teaching project “Citizens Consider(ed). AI and Sustainability in the Lake Constance Region”.
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Strengthening Citizen Science Infrastructure through Open Science Hardware
From community-built sensors to classroom-based observatories, open science hardware is already shaping some of the most impactful Citizen Science initiatives. Drawing on discussions and insights from the HEROES Workshop, this post examines how open hardware can serve as a foundational component of Citizen Science infrastructure in Europe.
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CrowdWater: Collecting water data with your smartphone
In the University of Zurich's Citizen Science project 'CrowdWater', the public collects water data via an app developed specifically for the project. The data is important for simulating water runoff from rivers and streams using models, thereby improving predictions of extreme events such as droughts or floods. Jan Seibert tells us more about the project.
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Review of the year 2025
We look back on the year 2025 and its various highlights. In our short and concise annual report we illustrate the most important facts and figures in a visually appealing format. At the same time, we give you an insight into the projects, courses and events coming up in the new year.
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Reflections from CS4Health 2025: advancing health research with society
The Citizen Science for Health 2025 conference brought together a global community committed to reimagining how health research is done. Over two days, participants explored new ways of collaborating across disciplines, sectors, and societies. Rosy Mondardini reflects on the insights and shared purpose that shaped this inspiring gathering.
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Can a robot be a better conversation partner?
For Ursula and Raffaele, this is not a rhetorical question. As part of a pilot project from the Citizens Consider(ed) seminar, a project group looked at care assistance robots. Sarah Sbalchiero was part of this team. She reports on the pilot project, the conversation with two citizen scientists and the challenges.
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Citizen Science in Action - A review of the third Swiss Citizen Science Conference
From 5-6 June 2025, the Swiss Citizen Science Conference “CitSciHelvetia” took place for the third time in Lausanne. This year's focus was on collaboration and partnerships between civil society and science. We from Citizen Science Zurich contributed with various formats.
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RIECS-Concept – Harnessing the full potential of Citizen Science in Europe
Citizen Science Zurich is part of RIECS-Concept, a 3-years EU project supported by Horizon Infrastructures 2024. Together with eleven partners we will conceptualize a European Research Infrastructure that will effectively serve Citizen Science practitioners and enable the establishment of active science-policy-society partnerships.
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Citizen Science for health: driving change through participation
From self-tracking with digital tools to co-designing clinical studies, participation is transforming the health landscape - empowering individuals to shape research, share data, and influence personal and global health decisions. This blog explores how Citizen Science is revolutionizing health research and driving innovation.
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Winter School 2025: A week dedicated to participation, power and perspective
During a cold week at the end of January 2025, 30 early career researchers from 14 countries joined our Citizen Science Winter School at the University of Zurich (UZH) and ETH Zurich. We look back on the exciting week.
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Let’s engage citizens in research!
We talked to citizen scientist Chantal Britt about the opportunities for citizen participation in general and patient involvement in particular, the value of applied experiences and Citizen Science as a potential career path.
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How we strengthen Citizen Science in Switzerland
What role can higher education institutions play in strengthening Citizen Science? We take a look at the recommendations from the 'Swiss Expert Group for Citizen Science' and show what we at Citizen Science Zurich are already doing today and which recommendations we want to put into practice in the future.
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Review of the year 2024
We look back on the year 2024 and the various highlights that shaped it. For the first time, we are also publishing a short and concise annual report. It illustrates the most important facts and figures in a visually appealing format. At the same time, we give you an insight into the projects, courses and events coming up in the new year.
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Ideas Lab 2024: The moving city
We look back on the first Citizen Science Zurich Ideas Lab. With the co-creative format, we connect actors from science and society and support them in developing new project ideas.
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CSZ at the Citizen Science Forum in Hamburg
This year's Forum Citizen Science was held under the motto "Mit:Wirkung" (With:Impact) and took place in mild temperatures and lots of sunshine in the golden fall in Hamburg. We were represented with two formats – a workshop and a poster – and provide a few insights into the two-day event in this article.
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The perfect guide for planning and implementing Citizen Science projects
Our Citizen Science Checklist developed with Schweiz forscht helps you to plan, implement and optimize your projects. It is ideal for keeping an eye on all the important aspects so that your projects can develop their full impact!
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The SDG Summer School 2024 is over – a review
The SDG Summer School 2024 just came to an end at the SDG Solution Space in Geneva, at the core of the UN headquarters. The unique experience, central to the SDG Olympiad, dove 19 international students into four weeks of deep immersion on sustainable development, social innovation, Citizen Science and open technologies.
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A success story: With over 150,000 contributions, citizen scientists help protecting wild rivers
Wild rivers provide habitat for a wide variety of plant and animal species and play a vital role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. They are disappearing at an extremely fast rate globally. We spoke with Shuo Zong about the Citizen Science project “Wild River,” which aims to counter this trend.
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A look behind the scenes of the "SchweinErleben" project
The idea is simple. If you want to find out what the ideal environment for domestic pigs looks like, just let them roam freely and observe. Mirjam and Maxime are doing exactly this in the "SchweinErleben" project with the help of hundreds of volunteers.
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Citizen Science in nature and species conservation
In nature and species conservation, where a large number of observations have to be collected and evaluated over a long period of time or distance, collaboration with volunteers offers opportunities. The crowd makes possible what individual researchers would need a great deal of time and capacity to do. We present six Citizen Science projects in this area.
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Citizen Science as a driver of change
This year's Conference of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) was a special event: around 550 participants from all over the world came together in Vienna to celebrate the Association's 10th anniversary. We took part in the conference and summarized our highlights of the event.
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Research with and for people affected
The Seed Grant project "Long Covid Citizen Science Board" directly involved people with Long Covid. They took part in discussions, exchanged ideas and assessed how research can better meet their needs. We spoke to Chantal Britt and Milo Puhan about the project and shed light on it from two perspectives - that of a citizen scientist affected by Long Covid, and that of an academic researcher.
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Small insects with a big impact
Bees and butterflies play an important role in the pollination of wild and cultivated plants, but are under particular pressure in urban areas. The Seed Grant project "B3 - Bienen, Baumscheiben und Bestäubung" investigated whether a greater diversity of plants in the city of Zurich has a positive impact. We spoke to Anouk Taucher and Kevin Vega about the project.
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Name and visualize impact with our Impact Narrative
Citizen Science projects have all the same cause: they want to achieve impact. What do we mean by impact and how can project organizers name it in a project-specific way and make it visible to the target group? Our template will help you to better grasp the impact of projects.
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A museum transforms into a knowledge workshop
With five workshop projects, the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich is becoming an open knowledge workshop. One of these is the Seed Grant project "The 'Borys Malkin Collection' in the view of Wounaan in Colombia". We spoke to the project manager Maike Powroznik about it and asked what role Citizen Science plays in it.
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Making skills acquired through Citizen Science projects visible
Anyone who participates in a Citizen Science project acquires new skills. In this article, you will find out why it is important to provide participants with documentation or certificates of these skills and how such proof of competence can look like.
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Citizen Science in museums - doing research together with society
The Swiss Museums Association has published a brochure that provides insights into the characteristics, the process and the most important stakeholder groups of Citizen Science in museums. We have summarized the most important aspects for you.
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Report of Citizen Science School 2023
From 4 - 9 June, 2023, we held the Citizen Science Summer School together with the Graduate Campus of UZH. In the following report we look back on the intensive, exciting week.
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Citizen Science for specific policy issues
Cléa Montanari shares insights about Citizen Science for Policy. Read more about three components that are essential for successful Citizen Science projects for policy.
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Citizen Science School 2021 Report
From June 14 - 25, 2021, we held the Citizen Science Summer School together with the Graduate Campus of the UZH. With pleasure we reviewed the successful Summer School and prepared a report about it.
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Detect urban floods impacts with the FIUME Project
We talked with Valerio Lorini from the European Commission about his project FIUME. The project aims at extracting valuable information about damages during floods or storms in urban areas combining social media, citizen science and artificial intelligence.
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Research Publication: Crowdsourcing snake identification with online communities
Snake identification can be challenging with significant medical consequences. During the week-long Snake-ID Challenge, more than 1,000 participants helped identify snake species based on photos. The goal was to assess how effective online communities are at this task. The results were recently published in the Royal Society Journal.
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Mining goes public. Discovering old traces with new means
We go on an exciting journey to Erzmatt, in the canton of Solothurn. Ore was mined there until 1850 and traces of it are still visible. The presented project wants to explore these traces and thereby learn more about the historical mining activities in the region.
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CitSci Helvetia 2021 – the very first Citizen Science Conference in Switzerland
Bringing together and connecting the different Citizen Science practitioners – that was the aim of the Citizen Science Conference “CitSci Helvetia 2021”. From 14-15 January 2021, over 190 citizen scientists from all over Switzerland and beyond took part in the diversified program, which was held virtually due to COVID-19.
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Hacking COVID-19 with AI and Citizen Science
At regional and national levels, policy makers urgently need relevant and actionable information on a range of Covid-related issues, as quickly and reliably as possible. The idea of the CrowdvsCovid challenge was to combine the speed of machines with the intelligence of the crowd.
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Report: Supporting Citizen Science in Academia and Beyond
On January 16th 2020, about 100 Citizen Science (CS) enthusiasts from all over Switzerland met up at ETH Zurich to discuss some hot topics in the current debate around Citizen Science and academia. The workshop series was organized by the Citizen Science Center Zurich and the Participatory Science Academy.
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Citizen Science & the Sustainable Development Goals – Part 2
In two blog posts, Rosy Mondardini shares her view on the potentials of Citizen Science as a way for researchers and citizens to contribute to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in particular to the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
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Citizen Science & the Sustainable Development Goals – Part 1
In two blog posts, Rosy Mondardini shares her view on the potentials of Citizen Science as a way for researchers and citizens to contribute to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in particular to the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
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“Two scientists come into a bar …” – Citizen Science at the Pint of Science Festival in Zürich
On Wednesday May 22nd 2019 after work, the team of the Citizen Science Center Zurich, along with about 50 other people, gathered in the BQM bar near the Federal Technical Institute in Zürich for the last evening of the Pint of Science Festival – and a night full of (citizen) science.
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Citizen Science for Global Health
“Do you know this snake?” That was the question we asked a vivid community of snake lovers out there in our Snake ID Challenge in late February. We were overwhelmed by the level of participation from all over the world. Learn more about the project in this interview with Andrew Durso.
