WeObserve

Citizens’ observatories are community-based environmental and information monitoring systems. They harness the potential of new sensor technology and other ICTs, like personal or mobile devices, to engage citizens in observing the environment and monitoring changes in our ecosystems.

WeObserve is a Coordination and Support Action that brings together four currently funded H2020 citizens’ observatories: GROW, LandSense, Scent and Ground Truth 2.0.  WeObserve aims to address three challenges for growing a wider uptake and use of citizens’ observatories, these are: awareness, acceptability and sustainability.

WeObserve will tend to these challenges by targeting, connecting and coordinating with relevant stakeholders to achieve four main objectives:

• To develop Communities of Practice around key topics in order to understand citizen observatories knowledge-base and strengthen it for addressing future environmental challenges.
• To increase the geographical spread of citizen observatories and build new communities to support a culture of best practices across diverse sectors.
• To demonstrate the value of citizen observatories in environmental monitoring at a local level but also with global initiatives, e.g. GEOSS, Copernicus and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• To promote the use and uptake of information from citizens’ observatory activities and initiate new business and innovation opportunities.

The University of Dundee is leading on the promotion and use of uptake through MOOCs, toolkits and a data converge challenge.