EURICE Encourages Pulses Lovers, Hobby Gardeners, and Leisure Scientists to Join the Award-winning INCREASE Citizen Science Experiment: Register now!
Over the past four years, the INCREASE project has not only seen incredible interest from citizens in actively supporting its research. The Citizen Science Experiment has also been awarded the European Union Prize for Citizen Science in its quest to foster agrobiodiversity by inviting European citizens to actively conserve and characterise diverse bean varieties.
To this end, more than 20,000 dedicated citizens from across Europe have so far participated in the INCREASE Citizen Science Experiment. The participants grew many different bean varieties during the last four growing seasons, collected invaluable scientific insights on their beans and nurtured a wonderful community that wants to see and create an environment in which all humans can thrive – now and in the future.
The Citizen Science Experiment invites anyone who wants to contribute to science and who owns a smartphone and a field, garden, terrace or balcony, as well as the required enthusiasm to grow six different bean varieties of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) during next year's growth season.
As part of the Citizen Science Experiment, each new participant will receive seeds of diverse old bean varieties to grow and take care of while documenting their development through uploading photos and scoring traits in the INCREASE Citizen Science app, called "INCREASE CSA." This enables the INCREASE team to evaluate the characteristics of these diverse varieties and eventually enhance agrobiodiversity in Europe.
The "INCREASE CSA" app is free to download from all digital platforms and available in different languages. Citizens can exclusively register their participation via the app and use it to document all observations during the growing period.
The Citizen Science Experiment is embedded into the European research project INCREASE which involves 25 international partners with the important goal to valorise agrobiodiversity and promote food legumes consumption and cultivation in Europe. The experiment is guided by the European Commission principles "open science, open innovation and open to the world" and INCREASE takes advantage of digital technologies to make science and innovation more collaborative and global.
EURICE supports the overall project communication and hosts the INCREASE website, where interested parties and participants can find extensive information about the Citizen Science Experiment.
