SOCIO-BEE proposes that community engagement and social innovation combined with Citizen Science (CS) through emerging technologies and playful interaction can bridge the gap between the capacity of communities to adopt more sustainable behaviours aligned with environmental policy objectives and between the citizen intentions and the real behaviour to act in favour of the environment (in this project, to reduce air pollution). Furthermore, community engagement can raise other citizens’ awareness of climate change and their own responses to it, through experimentation, better monitoring, and observation of the environment. This idea is emphasised in this project through the metaphor of bees’ behaviour (with queens, working and drone bees as main CS actors), interested stakeholders that aim at learning from results of CS evidence-based research (honey bears) and the Citizen Science hives as incubators of CS ideas and projects that will be tested in three different pilot sites (Ancona, Marousi and Ancona) and with different population: elderly people, everyday commuters and young adults, respectively. The SOCIO-BEE project ambitions the scalable activation of changes in citizens’ behaviour in support of pro-environment action groups, local sponsors, voluntary sector and policies in cities. This process will be carried out through low-cost technological innovations (CS enablers within the SOCIO BEE platform), together with the creation of proper instruments for institutions (Whitebook and toolkits with recommendations) that will contribute to the replication, upscaling, massive adoption and to the duration of the SOCIO-BEE project. The solution sustainability and maximum outreach will be ensured by proposing a set of public-private partnerships schemes and innovative targeted communication means to streamline exploitation and accessibility to the project impacts.

<< Objectives >>Our main objective is to improve STEM scientists’ ability to communicate their science to diversified audiences. Communicating science beyond expert audiences has been recognized as a key societal priority. Yet, resources and training designed to enable scientists to do so are lacking. This project will contribute to solving this problem by creating digital resources for professional development to assist STEM scientists (in particular women) to better communicate their science to society.<< Implementation >>We will conduct an ethnomethodological study to obtain data from EU STEM scientists (in particular women) on digital science communication practices and identify their good practices. Informed by this study, we will create instructional materials and develop a fully digital (online) training course, a MOOC and a virtual resource hub to help EU STEM scientists communicate more effectively to public audiences through different modes and digital media and enhance their cross-cultural sensitivity.<< Results >>Using empirical data, we will create an inventory of good practices for communicating science online to multidisciplinary audiences. We will create a sustainable infrastructure (a digital communication training hub) to support the resources for the two course types (testimonials of female scientists on digital communication practices, videotutorials, multiliteracy skills development tasks, guidelines for trainers). We target STEM scientists but the hub will be inclusive of non-STEM scientists.

Europe’s shortage of STEM skilled labour force is well documented, and the lack of STEM-skilled labour is predicted to be “one of the main obstacles to economic growth in the coming years”. There is a real need, at the European level, for innovative approaches to increasing the motivation of pupils towards STEM subjects and for offering teacher training into new ways of introducing science to the classroom. Additionally, there is still work to be done in improving the image of scientists at the societal level and demystifying science in general, if academic institutions are to attract much needed talent in their various fields. To meet these challenges, BRITEC proposed introducing research into classrooms through Citizen Science activities, co-designed between schools and research institutions, initially in the partner countries and with the long-term view of massive uptake in Europe and beyond. Citizen Science is a relatively new way of conducting scientific research, by enlisting the support of citizens into the data collection, data analysis, data interpretation and/or (in rare cases) data presentation. BRITEC proposed introducing the Citizen Science (CS) approach in schools as a way of connecting schools with the world of research and increasing the interest of young Europeans in STEM subjects and careers. BRITEC offers schools and research institutions a multi-stakeholder collaboration model, easy to replicate, to support the promotion and uptake of STEM studies and careers. To build this model, BRITEC suggested a bottom-up approach, including three complementary blocks of activities, which build on each other to develop a set of exemplary practices and guidelines for the implementation of Citizen Science in the classroom and to ensure their large-scale dissemination and uptake: 1. A foundational phase, including desk research into existing national and international citizen science initiatives and the development of a set of guidelines of introducing research into schools. 2. A Piloting Phase, during which teachers and researchers from each of the four participating countries (Belgium, Greece, Poland and Spain) co-defined and ran a number of Citizen Science projects in their countries. Exemplary practices feed into the Citizen Science toolkit for the large-scale implementation of CS in countries all across Europe. 3. The large-scale deployment phase, including the development and running of a Massive Open Online Course and a set of recommendations for policy makers, meant to ensure that the good practices resulted from the project jump from the initial set of participants to other schools and universities/research institutions interested in bringing innovation to STEM teaching. Through these actions, BRITEC aimed to: [1] expose pupils to real-life research actions and allow them to develop skills and competencies related to STEM through learning by doing [2] strengthen the dialogue between research institutions and schools, and the role of educational institutions in their local and regional environments [3] raise the profile of teachers by allowing them to become research coordinators in their schools [4] ensure that good practices which support the development of STEM skills are adequately disseminated to a large population of teachers throughout Europe and beyond.The main participants of the BRITEC activities were: teachers, researchers and students. Additional group benefiting from the BRITEC outcomes: heads of schools, parents, local communities, ministries of education, policy makers in the field of education. We reached directly over 1300 persons and assume that additionally ca. 6000 students benefitted from the BRITEC programme.

The rate of global biodiversity decline is unprecedented and accelerating. Urban sprawl, population growth and industrialization bring previously unrecognised drivers of biodiversity loss, including light and noise pollution. The EU has adopted policies, including the EU Green Deal and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, to enable transformative change through better protection of biodiversity and nature restoration activities. However, current projections suggest that the EU’s 2030 biodiversity target will not be met; an alternative plan is required. PLAN-B takes an integrated, multidisciplinary and multi-actor approach to deliver better understanding and support reduction of light and noise pollution impacts on terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services. Key outputs of PLAN-B include: a framework and supporting handbook for assessing light and noise pollution impacts to inform environmental decision-making; an open access database on light and noise impacts on terrestrial biodiversity; spatiotemporal models for evaluating noise and light impacts on terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services, including at the European scale; innovative solutions to prevent and mitigate light and noise pollution impacts; recommendations for enhancing legal and policy frameworks to reduce light and noise pollution impacts on terrestrial biodiversity; and sustainable Communities of Practice (CoPs), centred around key stakeholder groups, on the impacts of light and noise on terrestrial biodiversity. Working with European and international partners, including from Brazil, CoPs, key networks (e.g. Biodiversa+) and the Horizon Europe sister project on aquatic biodiversity and ecosystems, PLAN-B will maximise its global reach and research impact. Through its work programme, PLAN-B will create the enabling conditions to support and enhance activities planned in the EU biodiversity strategy and provide a new path towards meeting the EU and international biodiversity targets.

The COESO (Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues) project facilitates and supports participatory research in SSH, through a service-first approach. COESO supports ten Citizen Science pilots presenting a variety of disciplines, societal challenges and types of engagement with citizens in different European countries. COESO project will specifically support collaborative practices in Citizen Science by developing a Virtual Ecosystem for Research Activation (VERA), a platform envisioned as a "collaboratory” providing a set of tools to discover potential partners, to define and co-design the activities, to co-create new knowledge and solutions, and to deliver them to society. COESO will furthermore collaborate with research funding organizations to enhance financial support to Citizen Science projects in the SSH and explore the frontiers of innovation in SSH public engagement by achieving a complete mutual learning with the teams involved in the Pilots. Finally, “Cooperation analytics” will be designed to measure the quality of collaboration between researchers and citizens in VERA. Those analytics will be useful to the project teams themselves but they will also be a major contribution to funders, policy makers, research organizations and other stakeholders supporting Citizen Science policies. COESO’s overall objective is to overcome the obstacles that hinder the development of Citizen Science in the SSH. COESO will enable a dramatic growth of Citizen Science projects in these disciplines and will intensify the collaborations between SSH researchers and citizens to tackle together the many societal challenges European societies face today. VERA will be one of the core services offered by OPERAS Research Infrastructure to the scientific community.