Project R-13610

Co-CiPhil: Co-creating environmental citizen science capacity in the Philippines (Education)

Citizens of developing countries such as the Philippines often do not get the opportunity to have an active role in local environmental decision-making. Co-created citizen science is considered as an essential step in democratising conservation policies, due to its potential to broaden the understanding of these complex issues among the general public and to facilitate communication between citizens and legislators. Such citizen-science studies require careful design and investigation though, as they often yield data of suboptimal quality. Although several Philippine academics aim at setting up impactful community-based research, they often lack knowledge of and skills in designing and conducting such studies, and in analyzing the data they yield. In this International Training Programme, UHasselt and KU Leuven collaborate with the Visayas State University and the Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology in the Philippines in codeveloping capacity in quantitative and qualitative citizen-science research methodology. In total, four twoweek workshops, each consisting of two five-day courses that cover multiple topics in environmental citizenscience methodology, will be organised, alternatingly at each of the two partner universities in the Philippines. Educational methods that align with the Universal Design for Learning will be applied and specific attention will be devoted to using citizen-science research methods to empower women and minority groups

01 January 2023 - 31 December 2025