Building Bridges for Better Citizen Science: Citizen Science Highlights from Scivil

At Scivil, the Flemish Knowledge Center for Citizen Science, we connect researchers, citizens, and societal organizations to advance the field of citizen science. In this poster, we spotlight our most impactful achievements from recent years on how we open up the process of doing science to citizens through promoting, supporting and innovating citizen science and through connecting citizen science initiators and stakeholders. Our key milestones include our citizen science networking days, of which the last one brought together 250 citizen science enthusiasts from the communities of citizen science and cultural heritage, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations. We also conducted a comprehensive Citizen Science Scan, which mapped 150 projects across Belgium in 2023, offering valuable insights into the growing ecosystem of citizen science initiatives. Furthermore, Scivil has developed a diversity of guides, workshops and lectures on citizen science, designed to support, empower and inspire potential citizen science initiators and provided practical tools for designing and implementing successful projects. This way, we aim to strengthen the citizen science landscape in Flanders and beyond, to solve scientific issues and societal problems together with all relevant parties, thus optimally matching the acquired knowledge to all stakeholders.