Format: ORAL

Patrcia Tiago1,2

1 - cE3c – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes & CHANGE - Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa 2 – BioDiversity4All – Portugal

Citizen science is increasingly becoming a methodology used in biodiversity monitoring due to the massive amount of data it allows to collect, greatly benefiting scientific work. In this way, it gains a vast array of allies, the citizen scientists, spread across the entire territory, enabling unprecedented sampling. Indeed, this is not the only advantage. The increase in environmental literacy and the shift of these citizens from a passive role to being considered key elements in the scientific process give them an importance they did not have before. Is crucial to understand how to achieve a wide diversity of citizens, making citizen science not only democratic, as it already is, but also inclusive. How can we ensure that everyone feels they can contribute? What strategies can be employed to reach social groups less engaged with these topics? Should we strive to reach everyone? How can citizen scientists be encouraged to explore taxonomic groups that may seem less appealing? How do we tackle plant blindness that affects so many? Can citizen science help citizens become less disconnected from nature? These questions will set the tone for this symposium, aiming for it to be dynamic and participatory.