CitiObs
CitiObs (2023-2026)
Horizon Europe
€ 5.272.950
€ 371.000
Fab Lab Barcelona
Enhancing Citizen Observatories for healthy, sustainable, resilient and inclusive cities, using co-creation for inclusive, local actions.
STIFTELSEN NILU (coordinator)
Fab Lab Barcelona / IAAC, National Ecological Centre of Ukraine (NECU), Institute for Water Education (IHE Delft), RIVM – the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, University College Dublin, DRAXIS Environmental, DReVen, Eurocities, Centro de Investigación Ecológica y aplicaciones forestales (CREAM), Leiden University
The Project
CitiObs aims to enhance the work of Citizen Observatories so that they can serve as a vehicle for societal transformation towards sustainable development, increasing awareness and actions to reduce the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation to the health of citizens and our planet. To do so, CitiObs proposes a socio-technical approach to deal with the prevailing challenges that limit the uptake of COs observations in multi-level governance.
Our Contribution
Building on the legacy of well-known projects such as Smart Citizen, Making Sense and Distributed Design, our contribution aims to collect knowledge on participatory processes, technological resources for environmental monitoring, and action co-creation practices with creative collectives.
The Smart Citizen project, composed of open source software, open source hardware, digital maker practices and design was developed at Fab Lab Barcelona and is used by communities to measure and understand their own environmental data. The open infrastructure provided by the Smart Citizen project provides all necessary components for anyone to collect environmental data easily. The Smart Citizen platform, also developed by Fab Lab Barcelona, aggregates all data from the Smart Citizen kits worldwide and is an open, online resource.
A toolkit for co-creating citizen-led actions is a key component of the project, the final result will guide citizens in taking action towards environmental protection. However, we will do so in unconventional ways, by joining forces with creative collectives from the Distributed Design Platform (led by Fab Lab Barcelona | IAAC). This collaborative endeavor promotes innovative ways of connecting Citizen Observatories with local artists and creative networks. These diverse allies can imagine new ways to communicate, engage, make visible and protect our environment, while at the same time bringing voices from a wider representation of local communities.
Who is it for?
The outputs of the CitiObs project are tailored for Citizen Observatories, communities of practice around environmental matters, academia and policymakers.
Innovation Action for Global Challenges in food, bioeconomy natural resources, agriculture and environment funded by European Union’s Horizon Europe programme under Grant Agreement 101086421
