FUNDACION IBERCIVIS

Their core work

Fundación Ibercivis is a Zaragoza-based research foundation specializing in citizen science — designing and running projects where the public actively participates in scientific data collection and environmental monitoring. They build platforms and methodologies that enable communities to tackle issues like odour pollution, air quality, and urban environmental problems through distributed sensing and co-creation approaches. Their work bridges the gap between scientific research and public engagement, translating complex environmental and social challenges into participatory projects that produce actionable, evidence-based policy inputs.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their earlier H2020 work (2018-2019), Ibercivis focused on foundational citizen science and open science — building community-driven environmental monitoring (D-NOSES on odour pollution) and contributing to European citizen science platforms (EU-Citizen.Science). From 2021 onward, their focus shifted toward more applied, technology-enabled approaches: deploying wearable sensors and drones for air quality monitoring (SOCIO-BEE), connecting citizen-generated data to policy-making infrastructure like EOSC (DECIDO), and integrating social sciences more deeply (COESO). The trajectory is clear — from establishing citizen science methods to making them scalable, technically sophisticated, and policy-relevant.

Ibercivis is moving from community engagement methodology toward sensor-equipped, data-driven citizen science that feeds directly into evidence-based policy tools — expect future work combining IoT, environmental monitoring, and democratic governance.

How they like to work

Ibercivis operates primarily as an active partner rather than a consortium leader — they coordinated only D-NOSES while participating in four other projects and contributing as a third party to one more. With 85 unique partners across 20 countries, they have built an unusually broad network for an organization of their size, suggesting they are well-connected and easy to integrate into diverse consortia. Their balanced mix of RIA, IA, and CSA projects shows they are comfortable in both research-heavy and coordination/support roles.

Ibercivis has collaborated with 85 distinct partners across 20 countries, an impressive reach for a foundation with only 6 H2020 projects. This breadth indicates they are a well-networked node in the European citizen science community with strong pan-European connections.

What sets them apart

Ibercivis sits at a rare intersection: they are both a citizen science methodology expert and an environmental monitoring practitioner, which means they can design participatory frameworks AND deploy the sensor technology to make them work. Unlike purely academic citizen science groups, they focus on producing actionable outputs — data that feeds into policy, environmental governance, and community empowerment. For consortium builders, they bring a proven ability to handle the public engagement and co-creation work packages that many technical partners struggle with.

Highlights from their portfolio

• D-NOSES
  Their only coordinated project and largest budget (EUR 659K) — a unique combination of odour pollution monitoring, citizen sensing, and environmental justice tied to the Rio Declaration.
• SOCIO-BEE
  Represents their technological evolution — combining wearable sensors and drones with citizen science for urban air pollution, showing hardware capabilities beyond pure methodology.
• NEWSERA
  Positioned citizen science as a science communication tool with emphasis on data journalism and quadruple helix engagement, showing their ability to bridge research and media.