The European Commission Directorate-General for Research & Innovation and the European Union-funded Citizens’ Observatories projects invite you to the conference "Citizens’ Observatories: Empowering European Society", to be held on 4th December 2014 at the Management Centre Europe, Brussels.

 

This one day conference will look at the role and opportunities for active citizen participation in environmental monitoring and policy making. The event will provide opportunities to engage with experts and practitioners working across a range of European citizen science initiatives and policy making bodies, and to find out more about the work of the five Citizens’ Observatory projects.

 

The event includes two main sessions for stimulating the discussion:

• "Citizens Observatories and their value for decision making" - talks from the Commission, from EEA, from EPAs, from local authorities and also representatives from citizens, with their own views and experiences, followed by a round table with the speakers where we can discuss about the usefulness of Citizen Science in environmental policy (suitable scenarios for first implementations, possible ways of collaboration and channels of communication, fears and expectations of policy makers and also of citizens, benefits, market exploitation, etc). Seed questions will be fine-tuned in the upcoming weeks.
• "Panel session on Challenges of Citizens’ Observatories" -  a second round table focused on challenges these initiatives are facing (sustainability, governance, data protection, big data, legitimacy of actions by scientists, etc.) both with researchers and decision makers.