EMB Executive Director Sheila JJ Heymans started off the webinar with a short introduction and then Prof. Carlos Garcia-Soto and Dr. Gro I. van der Meeren discussed their work on this topic, which was included in the EMB Position Paper n°23 on Marine Citizen Science. After the presentations, therewas some time for questions from the participants and a discussion on the topic.
Prof. Carlos Garcia-Soto is a Senior Researcher at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography and a Professor on Satellite Oceanography and Meteorology at the University of the Basque Country. He was the Chair of the EMB Working Group on Marine Citizen Science elaborating the Position Paper “Advancing Citizen Science for Ocean and Coastal Research” (Garcia-Soto et al., 2017), which he presented in the Seminar. He is also a member of the Group of Experts of United Nations writing the World Ocean Assessment 2. Furthermore, he is the Principal Investigator of three H2020 Projects on Blue Economy, Fisheries and Cimate Change, and Ocean Observation Technologies. You can find his presentation here.
Dr. Gro I. van der Meeren is a senior researcher at the Institute of Marine Research in Norway. She is an ecologist/ethologist with particular experience in crabs and lobsters in coastal waters. Since the late 1980’s, she has been looking into crustacean neurology biology, ecology and sea ranching. Since 2008, her main tasks have been turned to evaluations and communicating marine ecosystem state and trends to management in national and international settings. Beside this, she has had citizen-oriented projects, including co-Chairing the EMB Working Group on Marine Citizen Science, but particularly for primary to middle class pupils, and also answering marine biology-related questions from the public through the IMR, public and several net-based Q&A sites. She has been leading a school toolbox for species recognition from shallow water, with an integrated report system for registrations to be evaluated and as a base for local time series. She is also involved in the establishment of the new "Dugnad for Havet", a communication tool for citizens of all ages to have easy access to IMR experts, and provide valuable information for science, as well as educating themselves through Q&A. You can find her presentation here.
You can re-watch this webinar on the EMB YouTube Channel.