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First meeting with all national coordinators from Europe (online event)

For the full study in 2023, the sampling will be expanded to all 27 European Union countries. To sucessfully activate the widespread beekeeping community in Europe, the INSIGNIA-EU consortium will also be expanded by subcontracting a total of 19 institutions. Thus, we are able to cover all European Union member states and all 23 European languages.

It has been a while, since the INSIGNIA-EU consortium held an online event to meet the subcontractors on July 6. Nevertheless, we want to inform our readers about this important meet and greet.

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INSIGNIA-EU – the citizen scientist’s opinion counts too!

In one of the recent blog entries, we talked about the different stages of participation of volunteers in a citizen science study. This time, we want to address that the form of involvement in a citizen science study can also be very different.

Let’s talk about three different categories of citizen science studies, that are described in literature and to whom the INSIGNIA-EU can be allocated (Bonney et al., 2009, see also Table 1).

Contributory projects: Typically, scientists design the study and the public is primarily involved by collecting data.

Collaborative projects: Scientists generally design the study, the public is involved by not only collecting the data, but also takes part in evaluating the study-setup, help analyzing data or is part of the dissemination process.

Co-created projects: Scientists work together with the public to design a study and at least a part of the volunteers is involved in all steps of the study process.

Continue reading “INSIGNIA-EU – the citizen scientist’s opinion counts too!”

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Sjef’s visit in Graz and trip to two Austrian citizen scientists

Past Friday, Sjef van der Steen visited the Uni Graz Natco team Kristina Gratzer and Robert Brodschneider at the University of Graz in Austria.
We had one full day of activities together.
The day started with the sampling at the university’s own apiary. Sjef turned out to be a great assistant in the sampling process.
After we stored all samples accordingly, we visited a nearby restaurant for lunch and discussed the further program of the day.
The first goal was to visit Josef, one of the Austrian citzen scientists near Graz. We decided to take the country road, passing some small cities, woods,  loads of farming lands,  and even former study sites of Sjef.

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7th Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2022 or dear national coordinators

Citizen Science – why not?

This was the topic of the 7th Austrian citizen science conference held end of June in Dornbirn visited by researchers from Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Citizen science is scientific research partly being done by non-professionals, which are nonetheless experts and/or enthusiasts in a specific field.

Of course, the Austrian partners of the INSIGNIA-EU project from the University of Graz did not miss the opportunity to be a part of this event. They presented the valuable volunteer work of beekeepers acting as citizen scientists in projects like INSIGNIA or INSIGNIA-EU. Continue reading “7th Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2022 or dear national coordinators”

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A full sampling round on video

The first sampling round is behind us and in the course of this, we were able to familiarize ourselves with the sampling materials and the sampling process.

The pilot study in 2022 is relatively complex and involves many different methods, that the participating beekeepers have to engage with.

Because pictures are known to say more than 1000 words, we made a video of the sampling and uploaded it to YouTube. This should serve as a supplement to the picture manual and hopefully increases the understanding of the course of the pilot study.

Since the pollen trap of the hives was still closed at the time of sampling, the pollen sampling is not included in the video, but will be added later on.

 

The video can be watched through the following LINK.

 

Kristina Gratzer

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C*Sci2022 presented by the Citizen Science Association

 

This year, the C*Sci2022 conference will be held online from May 23-May 26. Registered parties will be able to join interesting discussions and have access to more than 100 posters and douzens of talks about a variety of citizen science projects around the world.

The opening keynote will be held by Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Andreotta, who will give a talk on “Cultivating Science, Justice, and Action”

Of course, the INSIGNIA-EU team will also be part of the conference by presented a poster about the project (dowload the PDF poster here –> INSIGNIAPoster)

Be sure to sign up and learn more about citizen science.

Link to the conference website: https://citizenscience.org/c-sci-2022/csci2022-program-details/

 

Kristina Gratzer and Robert Brodschneider

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The pilot study in 2 min

Denmark has now made the setup in all five apiaries. The pilot study is rather complicated, but when you first do it in practical beekeeping, then it turns out to be easy. It takes 16 min to set up a colony for the pilot study. But there is a lot of small bits and pieces you have to have control on. So, at the first setup we  have to get at sessor, an envelope, clips etc. We felt we did a rather long walk as well. But now it is up running and we are looking forward to the sampling in 2 weeks’ time.

 

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