Periodic Reporting for period 1 - I-CHANGE (Individual Change of HAbits Needed for Green European transition)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-11-01 bis 2023-04-30
The project through a multidisciplinary and participatory approach, aims to strengthen the participation and awareness of citizens on the climate change phenomena and its impacts. To do this, it will carry out various activities, starting from the collection of environmental data through citizen science activities, to educational and informative paths that allow to understand the impact of daily behaviours on the environment, up to conduct living labs in some cities of the project partner countries. Data, tools and apps developed during the project will converge in the I-CHANGE Environmental Impact Hub (EIH), which will return information to citizens; moreover, the EIH aims to inter-operate with the main European initiatives for data sharing and computational infrastructures. The tools will be developed in a co-creation process that will guide citizens to explore scientific methods and techniques, in cooperation with experts in the field. The result will be to generate citizen science activities based on a solid scientific foundation and supported by collection, gathering and processing of data using the most up-to-date techniques and models to provide simple and practical guidelines, easily applicable by individuals and by local governors and to facilitate further uptake at national level.
WP1 Knowledge synthesis on climate change and sustainable behaviors
By this reporting period (RP1) WP1 has assessed global and local threats exerted by climate change and human environmental impacts in each of the LL target city (Task 1.1). Furthermore, driving factors and barriers for participating citizen science activities and just transition has been analysed through a social media analysis and a literature review (Task 1.2).
WP2 Living Lab setup and management
The main objective of WP2 has been to facilitate engagement of stakeholders, bringing together key local actors, citizens, and the scientific community involved in I-CHANGE.
The purpose is to assess non-technical challenges to citizen science initiatives and data gathering activities implemented in WP3 and WP4.
WP3 Enhancing monitoring opportunities through citizen science
The main objective of WP3 has been to organize a series of citizen science initiatives in the Living Labs to raise awareness on climate action and to motivate the engagement of citizens by improving the observation of the environment and of the individual and collective environmental impacts.
WP4 Observation integration and interoperability of data
The main objective of WP4 has been to design and implement the I-CHANGE Environmental Impact Hub (EIH), a central component enabling data sharing and facilitating the development of applications for climate change adaptation. At M18, WP4 has released the EIH system architecture (D4.1 and Milestone 6) describing the EIH.
WP5 Communication and dissemination
In the first 18 months, I-CHANGE implemented a series of communication and dissemination activities with the aim of raising awareness on climate change issues and on the project activities, results and outcomes towards the different target groups identified at different levels. Therefore, a strategy has been released (D5.1) identifying suitable channels for transferring the knowledge and promote a wide use of projects’ results and outputs to maximise the I-CHANGE impact.
WP6 Synergies with existing initiatives and exploitation
WP6 facilitated the exploitation of I-CHANGE results to ensure that the project’s results make an impact. Exploitation actions are primarily focusing on distilling advise and tools for citizens and policy makers. As part of the exploitation, WP6 aims at building strong synergies in Europe and beyond to enhance cooperation and collaboration. By M18, a broad range of synergies have been established with European projects and through the EU-clustering workshops.
WP7 Coordination and management
During the first period the WP7 coordination activities were evolving smoothly under the CIMA Research Foundation coordination and in close cooperation with all the I-CHANGE partners. During the first 18 months (Reporting Period 1) I-CHANGE project submitted 26 deliverables (25 in time) and achieved 4 milestones (in time).
By this reporting period (RP1) WP1 has assessed global and local threats exerted by climate change and human environmental impacts in each of the LL target city (Task 1.1). Furthermore, driving factors and barriers for participating citizen science activities and just transition has been analysed through a social media analysis and a literature review (Task 1.2).
WP2 Living Lab setup and management
The main objective of WP2 has been to facilitate engagement of stakeholders, bringing together key local actors, citizens, and the scientific community involved in I-CHANGE.
The purpose is to assess non-technical challenges to citizen science initiatives and data gathering activities implemented in WP3 and WP4.
WP3 Enhancing monitoring opportunities through citizen science
The main objective of WP3 has been to organize a series of citizen science initiatives in the Living Labs to raise awareness on climate action and to motivate the engagement of citizens by improving the observation of the environment and of the individual and collective environmental impacts.
WP4 Observation integration and interoperability of data
The main objective of WP4 has been to design and implement the I-CHANGE Environmental Impact Hub (EIH), a central component enabling data sharing and facilitating the development of applications for climate change adaptation. At M18, WP4 has released the EIH system architecture (D4.1 and Milestone 6) describing the EIH.
WP5 Communication and dissemination
In the first 18 months, I-CHANGE implemented a series of communication and dissemination activities with the aim of raising awareness on climate change issues and on the project activities, results and outcomes towards the different target groups identified at different levels. Therefore, a strategy has been released (D5.1) identifying suitable channels for transferring the knowledge and promote a wide use of projects’ results and outputs to maximise the I-CHANGE impact.
WP6 Synergies with existing initiatives and exploitation
WP6 facilitated the exploitation of I-CHANGE results to ensure that the project’s results make an impact. Exploitation actions are primarily focusing on distilling advise and tools for citizens and policy makers. As part of the exploitation, WP6 aims at building strong synergies in Europe and beyond to enhance cooperation and collaboration. By M18, a broad range of synergies have been established with European projects and through the EU-clustering workshops.
WP7 Coordination and management
During the first period the WP7 coordination activities were evolving smoothly under the CIMA Research Foundation coordination and in close cooperation with all the I-CHANGE partners. During the first 18 months (Reporting Period 1) I-CHANGE project submitted 26 deliverables (25 in time) and achieved 4 milestones (in time).
The summary hereafter provided refers to a selection of WPs directly connected with Living Labs activities.
WP3 achievements
Within RP1, WP3 is setting up an original modelling chain capable to estimate the impacts of behavioural changes on carbon and environmental footprint, climate change mitigation, geo-hydrological hazards. Of these, an integrated mobility-based behavioral simulation model to simulate the impact of traffic policy scenarios has been developed and released. Alongside the demonstrative practical activities with a heterogeneous network of sensing tools for citizen science successively deployed in the I-CHANGE 6 European and 2 non-European Living Labs, this information is useful to motivate citizens to a (radical – whenever possible) shift of consumption patterns in different cultural and economic settings. The work produced is beyond the state of art considering that it provides novel information on carbon and environmental footprint. Citizens will thus be empowered with practical advices and tools to monitor their impacts.
WP4 achievements
The Environmental Impact Hub is the technological building block enabling the innovation of process implemented by the I-CHANGE project and consisting in using mobile technologies and citizen science capabilities to induce a behavioural change for climate change adaptation. Specifically, the implementation and deployment of the EIH has a great potential of innovation to go beyond the state of the art in citizen science observation sharing and use. The development of a dedicated Citizen Observatory and the deployment of an advanced broker connecting it and other relevant data sources will facilitate the integration of citizen science observations with other data coming from external providers for validation and generation of information. The access of heterogeneous data through a single API will facilitate application developers in creating mobile and desktop apps for collecting data from sensors and providing feedback to users. In particular, the dashboard will provide tailored information about the environmental impact of citizen actions captured by sensors and observations. Moreover, the support of standard interfaces for data sharing will enable the EIH to interoperate with existing and future data infrastructure at European and global level avoiding the creation of yet another silos-like platform.
WP6 achievements
Utilizing an active and early exploitation approach, key exploitable results are developed from the beginning targeting a successful exploitation and hence societal impact toward an environmental and climate-friendly behavioural. In addition, project outcomes will be create an impact on 1) individuals behaviour through targeted and tested adaptation cookbook; 2) policy making by enhancing citizen engagement and science in local decision making and actions with policy briefs and dialogues; 3) project stakeholders through continuous engagement possibilities with the forum and manifesto; 4) other related projects through established and strengthened synergies; and 5) local climate data repertoires by enriching them with sensor data collected, quality-checked, and harmonised in I-CHANGE.
WP3 achievements
Within RP1, WP3 is setting up an original modelling chain capable to estimate the impacts of behavioural changes on carbon and environmental footprint, climate change mitigation, geo-hydrological hazards. Of these, an integrated mobility-based behavioral simulation model to simulate the impact of traffic policy scenarios has been developed and released. Alongside the demonstrative practical activities with a heterogeneous network of sensing tools for citizen science successively deployed in the I-CHANGE 6 European and 2 non-European Living Labs, this information is useful to motivate citizens to a (radical – whenever possible) shift of consumption patterns in different cultural and economic settings. The work produced is beyond the state of art considering that it provides novel information on carbon and environmental footprint. Citizens will thus be empowered with practical advices and tools to monitor their impacts.
WP4 achievements
The Environmental Impact Hub is the technological building block enabling the innovation of process implemented by the I-CHANGE project and consisting in using mobile technologies and citizen science capabilities to induce a behavioural change for climate change adaptation. Specifically, the implementation and deployment of the EIH has a great potential of innovation to go beyond the state of the art in citizen science observation sharing and use. The development of a dedicated Citizen Observatory and the deployment of an advanced broker connecting it and other relevant data sources will facilitate the integration of citizen science observations with other data coming from external providers for validation and generation of information. The access of heterogeneous data through a single API will facilitate application developers in creating mobile and desktop apps for collecting data from sensors and providing feedback to users. In particular, the dashboard will provide tailored information about the environmental impact of citizen actions captured by sensors and observations. Moreover, the support of standard interfaces for data sharing will enable the EIH to interoperate with existing and future data infrastructure at European and global level avoiding the creation of yet another silos-like platform.
WP6 achievements
Utilizing an active and early exploitation approach, key exploitable results are developed from the beginning targeting a successful exploitation and hence societal impact toward an environmental and climate-friendly behavioural. In addition, project outcomes will be create an impact on 1) individuals behaviour through targeted and tested adaptation cookbook; 2) policy making by enhancing citizen engagement and science in local decision making and actions with policy briefs and dialogues; 3) project stakeholders through continuous engagement possibilities with the forum and manifesto; 4) other related projects through established and strengthened synergies; and 5) local climate data repertoires by enriching them with sensor data collected, quality-checked, and harmonised in I-CHANGE.