3 years ago

Category: android, ios

Citizen science initiatives, and scientific studies in general, are often done using traditional techniques. To overcome these deficiencies in conducting research concerning food integrity, BeYou designed an innovative digital Citizen Science Initiative (CSI). The CSI engages ordinary citizens as active and willing participants in efforts to understand and improve the state of food integrity.Apiumhub client, BeYou, a startup in digital health (Barcelona), AZTI Technology Centre (Basque Country), Queen’s University of Belfast, and Aarhus University (Denmark) have created a consortium project under ‘EIT Food’ to create a Citizen Science Initiative to encourage citizens to take an active role to improve food integrity.“Citizen Science occurs when volunteers in the general public help to conduct scientific research to generate science-based knowledge that contributes to understanding and transforming the system.”Emma Ek – Product Manager –BeYouBeYou has designed a pioneering approach to recruit and engage citizens by inviting them to become amateur scientists to fight the food integrity challenge in Spain and the UK, participate in interactive food trust experiments and connect directly with scientists to contribute to a better and more transparent food system.

Through the initiative the goal was to engage and involve country citizens in food research, inspiring citizens to become change agents as amateur scientists in the transition towards an inclusive and trusted food system based on science.

Emma explains: “The strategy was to strengthen the communication between the most trusted source of information (science), and society, giving citizens the opportunity to interact directly with the scientists, creating a valuable digital and interactive scientific community.”The initiative was promoted on social media platforms, and collaborated with food and nutrition influencers.A total of 481 participants showed interest to join the initiative, but as the initiative had limited spots available we had 88 participants from the UK and 122 participants from Spain.