Conference Agenda

Today's cities are undergoing many changes that pose challenges to urban planning. These range from housing shortages in city centres to vacancy phenomena in small towns in rural areas. The vacancy problem is not a new phenomenon and has been well researched in Germany, especially in eastern Germany, since reunification. However, the focus is often on large cities and vacant dwellings. Other regions, especially smaller cities, and their problems with increasing retail vacancy rates have been little studied, and the data is diffuse and inadequate. As a result, there is often a lack of knowledge about the causes of vacancies, which makes it difficult to implement strategies to address them. In this context, it is helpful to draw on local knowledge, which is often difficult to access from outside. Involving citizens in research projects can be one solution.

The Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is considered one of the most important cultural german landscapes. Despite this, the vacancy rate in the communities of this area is above the regional average. The most striking feature is the large number of unused or abandoned buildings in visually dominant locations in the city centre, creating a negative image. As part of a citizen science project, the problem of vacant buildings was investigated together with citizens from four selected small towns in the region. The project takes a holistic approach by combining the perspectives of research, urban planning, local politics and citizen participation. The participating citizens are considered as local experts and stakeholders and are involved in the whole research process. This includes the joint development of research questions, data collection in the form of vacancy mapping and surveys of vacancy owners, as well as data analysis and the development of solutions for specific vacancies.

The paper shows that citizen science is an appropriate approach to identify the causes of urban blight and to develop participatory solutions. We discuss barriers and success factors of citizen science projects in the context of urban development, as well as the general potential for innovative development of strategies to address the problem of vacancy.

Citizen science initiatives offer several benefits to communities and their territory. This is particularly evident when teenagers participate in hands-on citizen science activities, which generate a threefold impact: (i) fostering new knowledge, (ii) creating learning opportunities, and (iii) promoting civic engagement. By working on projects that address relevant community and social issues, teenagers not only develop a deeper understanding of these challenges but also cultivate a sense of ownership and responsibility toward their local environment and territory.

Building on this idea, we designed an educational workshop that integrates three key approaches: (i) co-design, (ii) citizen science, and (iii) game thinking. This methodology aims to equip teenagers with conceptual and technological skills while fostering civic engagement and awareness. The workshop follows a structured five-step process: i) Introduction to key concepts and interactive quizzes; 2) Warm-up activity (an hand-on Citizen Sciene activity); 3) Co-design session (group creation of low-fidelity mockups); 4) Presentation of the co-designed mobile apps; 5) Evaluation (to collect students feedback and reflections). As a final outcome, participants co-design low-fidelity mockups of a citizen science mobile app to address a specific social issue within their city and territory, such as urban accessibility, environmental sustainability, biodiversity conservation, sustainable tourism and mobility.

We implemented and evaluated this initiative within the framework of "Citizer Science," a project led by Agenda Digitale of the Emilia-Romagna Region, the department responsible for coordinating and promoting digital and technological development actions in the territory. This initiative intends to improve open data availability and application to policy making processes by promoting the adoption and expansion of citizen science practices across the region, following a shared conceptual framework tailored to its geographic context. By embedding our workshop within this broader effort, we engaged approximately 450 students, aged 12 to 18, across multiple cities in the region.

Our findings highlight two key outcomes. First, the experience had a significant impact on how teenagers perceive and engage in civic participation. Second, the co-design process provided valuable insights and original ideas for developing citizen science projects that actively involve young communities in initiatives that benefit their communities and local environment.

Digital climate health technologies are increasingly recognized as emerging tools for reducing the negative impacts of climate change on public health. To enhance their effectiveness, these technologies need to adopt bottom-up and citizen-led approaches to integrate citizens as key actors and stakeholders throughout the design, development, and application processes. Air quality monitoring platforms are an example of digital technologies that are being widely utilized to visualize the patterns of air pollution and provide real-time warnings through a mix of stationary sensors, mobile applications, and online platforms. The field of air quality features citizen science tools enhancing public awareness and engagement on air quality issues while providing spatially distributed real-time data. Among these technologies, we analyze Claircity, a Horizon 2020 funded air pollution monitoring project aimed at improving air quality and reducing the carbon footprint in European cities. ClairCity integrates gamification technologies to actively involve citizens in air quality management and policymaking. Using a mixed-methods approach, including surveys and semi-structured interviews, we investigate the role of citizen science tools and innovative participatory methods such as gamification in fostering citizen engagement. The paper discusses the opportunities and challenges associated with user-centered design within the context of air quality monitoring platforms. Furthermore, it provides insights into effective user engagement methods and policies and offers recommendations for future practice in this field.

The quality of domestic water supply can be affected by lingering contaminants. One of such contaminants is lead, which may arise from lead piping systems in buildings constructed during or pre the 1970s. Notably, a lack of awareness around specific water issues can contribute to a lack of clarity around the scale. For Ireland, the extent of lead piping across the Republic is largely unknown in residential settings. This is in spite of random sampling undertaken in the past to determine lead pipe estimates. Even though a residential lead pipe replacement program exists, limited awareness and public trust are significant issues. This paper emerges from a research project which investigates challenges regarding water quality with a major focus on the presence of lead and how the urban lead pipe network can be addressed in Ireland. The project took a multifaceted approach via case studies of three Dublin communities – Dolphin House, Oliver Bond and Phibsboro Village – with the employment of Citizen Science Initiatives to inform on water quality issues. The paper thus investigates the methodologies utilised to ensure participation and encourage citizen science in the testing of domestic water supplies to ascertain the presence or not of lead and the way forward. The methods included 3 workshops and 46 household surveys over the three communities to inform on the knowledge gaps around the presence of lead in water. The methods also incorporated the roll out of a water testing programme where 51 households sampled their own water for testing. The paper is presented as a case study on the role of Citizen Science initiatives in examining domestic water quality issues and will critically reflect on the potential of a multifaceted citizen science approach with its especial value of unintrusive access in private settings.