On 14 December, Michael Magee form NHMD, and Leonardo Veronesi and Beatriz Ortega from ECSE took part in organising a Citizen Science Fair at the MUSE – Museo delle Scienze in Trento, Italy. The event was organised in partnership with the TETTRIs project, MUSE, and the Italian and European Citizen Science Associations.

Twenty-six projects from across the region were represented, including initiatives from Italy, Austria, Slovenia, and Germany. Panel discussions brought together scientists, policymakers, and representatives from business to explore how citizen science can contribute to environmental monitoring and decision-making for biodiversity protection. The event attracted a large number of participants, with over 1000 attendees.

The following day, the team and botanist Heimo Rainer from the Natural History Museum Vienna remained in Trento for knowledge exchange with the MUSE team. Discussions focused on public engagement, digitalization, and the us of AI and Citizen science to decipher and transcribe text on collection labels. There was strong interest on all sides in future collaboration.

Trento: a rich biodiversity region

MUSE was chosen as a place to hold this knowledge transfer event because of the rich biodiversity in the region. The countries surrounding the Mediterranean harbor Europe’s biodiversity hotspot. Northern Italy is particularly interesting because of it’s diverse landscape, with unique alpine species. It was encouraging to see how many projects work with citizens and with taxonomy to help understand biodiversity in the region.

It is clear, we need more of these events to share knowledge and create collaborations and dialogue between stakeholders. 

Have a look at the image gallery of the event: