About the ECS Academy

About the
ECS Academy

The European Citizen Science Academy (ECS Academy) is a learning platform managed by the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) co-created as part of the European funded project ECS (European Citizen Science); still ongoing until July 2026.

The vision of the ECS Academy is to create a thriving, up-to-date, and useful European go-to place for learning on participatory and citizen science in Europe.

Our mission

It aims to share citizen science training across Europe, promote training opportunities, facilitate the work of citizen science educators and trainers and the development of new training when needed.

Our values

The ECS Academy values diversity, inclusivity, collaboration and means well.

Support for Learners and Educators

The ECS Academy assumes that with the increased adoption of citizen science and its mainstreaming, there is a need to provide more support to learners who want to take the existing modules and develop programmes and training that can support new target groups such as research managers or policy professionals.

The Importance of Citizen Science

In the mid 2010s, came a recognition that the field of citizen science is worthy of a joint body of knowledge. Therefore, there is a need to make researchers aware of the potential, challenges, opportunities, and practices of citizen science so that future research projects can be built on the lessons from earlier efforts, and the growing body of the science of citizen science (see Vohland et al. 2021).

What you can find here?

Training resources

Training resources on the eu-citizen.science platform. Resources have also been filtered and linked to training needs in this file:

Self study and online courses

Here is a course guide where the courses are sorted based on introductory courses to courses on more advanced topics.

Networks

At the ECS Academy we have three networks. One of researchers, one of practitioner and one of citizen science educators and trainers. There is a tab specific to networks so that you can receive more information.

Calendar

Calendar and or a newsletter of citizen science training across Europe.

Training

Trainings on citizen science.

Resources that talk about the
ECS Academy

9th April, 2025
Post written by Muki Haklay which contextualises the ECS Academy within a 20 year with a 20 year perspective that looks at the needs for skills and competencies in participatory and citizen science. The blog post examines the emergence of citizen science as a coherent field of activity and the need for introducing people to the theory and practice of it. It then moves to the early development of training in citizen science a decade ago, and the development of the European Citizen Science Academy today.

Read the full post