Citizen Science Netherlands network officially launched
The Citizen Science Netherlands (CS-NL) network was officially launched this month with the aid of an Open Science NL grant. The new vision for this network was presented on 28 May.
Members who played an important role in the network’s creation were also invited to the vision’s presentation. The vision explains how the network came about and lists its current mission and goals. Leiden astronomer Frans Snik and assistant professor of science communication Anne Land-Zandstra were instrumental throughout, both as members of the National Open Science Programme (NPOS) Citizen Science Work Group and as co-founders of the Citizen Science Lab.
The Leiden Citizen Science Lab is one of the initiators of the CS-NL network. Network coordinator Margaret Gold and community manager Anouk Spelt will continue to lead and professionalise the network on behalf of the university.
‘We took a moment to celebrate this important milestone and to thank the many people who played a key role in ensuring that Citizen Science is at the heart of the national strategy for Open Science and that the community of practice is connected and strengthened at the national level’, says Margaret Gold.
CS-NL aims to bring together people dealing with citizen science so they can share knowledge. This could mean practitioners, initiators, researchers and citizens from all corners of society (citizens, government, industry, researchers and local organisations). The grant application included extensive plans for the next four years. These plans were co-produced with the citizen science community and will be implemented jointly. Initiatives, knowledge, tools and information will be shared on a specially developed national platform and members will be able to meet several times a year at networking days, symposiums, workshops and webinars.
‘I think this grant places the Netherlands in a select group of other European countries with strong national citizen science networks’, says Open Science director, Hans de Jonge. ‘These networks are crucial to increasing citizen science and public engagement.’
If you are a Leiden University student or staff member and are interested in citizen science, you can join the national CS-NL network or contact the university’s Citizen Science Lab (via Margaret Gold or the Citizen Science Teams environment).
The CS-NL team would like to celebrate this financial injection with the whole network. It will therefore be having celebratory drinks in the afternoon on Monday 1 July, where it will also present its new vision. To stay informed, sign up for the newsletter, follow the CS-NL network on X (previouslyTwitter) or sign up for the LinkedIn group.
What is citizen science? In citizen science, as the name suggests, citizens take an active role in scientific research, for example by collecting, sharing or analysing data. Citizen science promotes scientific literacy and public engagement in scientific processes.