Doing It Together Science (DITOs) is a 3-year project, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, that is aimed to increase awareness of and participation in citizen science across Europe and beyond. It is focused on communication, coordination, and support of citizen science activities. Therefore, the project promotes the sharing of best practices among existing networks for a greater public and policy engagement with citizen science through a wide range of events and activities.

1. Multi-country science
engagement programmes
Moderator – Carlin Hsueh, ASTC World Biotech Tour Project
Manager
Speakers
▪ Muki Haklay, UCL Prof. of Geographic Information Science,
“Doing It Together Science”
▪ Yumi Miyahara, Miraikan Curator, “Picture Happiness on Earth”
▪ Walter Staveloz, ASTC Director International Relations, “World
Biotech Tour”
▪ Maria Zolotonosa, Ecsite Senior Project Manager, “Sparks”

2. 5:00
Doing It Together Science: DITOs
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under grant agreement No 709433
Muki Haklay, UCL

3. Everyone
Consumption of science (passive/active)
Opportunistic or highly limited participation
DITOs Engagement Escalator
3
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433

4. Everyone
Consumption of science (passive/active)
Opportunistic or highly limited participation
Data collection and analysis
High engagement in DIY science
Joining volunteer computing or thinking
DITOs Engagement Escalator
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433

5. DITOs - Operation
About 500 events – from film nights to DIY science
Engaging 290,000 people directly
Further 1.2m engagements online
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433

6. 11 Partners
10 countries
Research, NGOs,
SMEs, and an
international NGO.
It should’ve been a
smooth journey

7. What can go wrong?
• We discussed the project for two
years
• Events and activities were collated
bottom-up
• Existing audience statistics
aggregated to provide confident
estimation of commitments
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433

8. 3:00This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433
Multi-country activity: Science Bus
• Four teams of science
communication/DIY science
facilitators
• 9 countries, lots of workshops and
16,000 vlog views, 12,400 guides

9. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433
Multi-country activity: Translation Hub
• Internal initiative, to increase
reach of translation budget
• Citizen translation for citizen
science (for material that falls
below the professional translation
threshold)
• Set as an a bottom-up online
citizen science project, evolving

10. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433
Multi-country activity: City Nature
Challenge
• Large scale, app focused bioblitz
• Identifying opportunity during the
Citizen Science Association 2017
conference
• Using project resources to enhance
an evolving activity, demonstrating
pan-European public engagement
with nature observations

11. Plans meet reality: partnerships
• Highly diverse consortium == highly
diverse languages, organisational
goals, focus, work practices
• Require face to face time, and
cross consortium visits
• Dedicated coordinator effort
facilitating “one to one” with
people across the consortium, as
well as cross consortium calls
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433

12. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433
Plans meet reality: timelines
• Q4 2014 – Submission 1
• Q4 2015 – Rewrite & submission 2
• Q3 2016 – Project starts
• Q3 2019 – project ends
• Organisation goals and activities
change a lot in 5 years
• Flexibility in event categories and
revaluation of event at mid point

13. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433
Plans meet reality: staff
• Project funding == new staff === no
familiarity with the supposedly bottom-
up events and activities plans
• Lack of familiarity with project design
decision (e.g. Biodesign/Biotechnology)
• Document design decision and
organisational plans, prepare an
introduction to the project pack and
“on boarding” by “project elders”

14. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433
Plans meet reality: environment
• May you live an interesting times!
• The proposal assumed increasing
cooperation in the environmental
area, and pan-European Policy
Roundtables – and then Brexit
happened
• Reimagine activities and redesign
according to the condition, to
maintain external interest

15. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433
DITOs: achievements
• DITOs bottom up event planning
worked: at 40% evaluation point, core
targets of engagement activities have
been reached at 60% of project total.
• DITOs helped ECSA consolidate its
position and grow as an association
• Major involvement in EU Green Week
2018
• Significant presence in social media

16. What this means for the future of
global programs?
• The effort of creating a network and group of people that are
working together is high, but mid project, team are working
together well, but already feeling the end…
• How are we going to convince funders to fund long term global
programmes (a problem for Big Science projects, too!)
0:20This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 709433