InSPIRES Open Call results: Six participatory research projects will be implemented
InSPIRES is pleased to announce that the Open Call evaluation process has been completed with a final selection of six participatory research projects to be implemented during the upcoming years.
The InSPIRES Open Call supports the implementation of participatory research projects focused on health and environmental issues that are considered key societal challenges, giving special attention to gender parity and vulnerable groups (women, the elderly, adolescents, migrants and refugees).
The Open Call was launched May 14th and disseminated through the InSPIRES’s website, social networks and other channels in collaboration with the consortium members. The call closed on 23:59 CET on June 15th.
43 proposals were received before the prescribed deadline and evaluated following the evaluation criteria described in the Open Call. The evaluators that participated in this task were the members of the InSPIRES’ General Assembly, which is formed by one representative of each InSPIRES partner.
A high variety of proposals was evaluated in terms of geographical spread and topic. The awarded entities, which tackle very different health and environmental challenges, are from Greece, Turkey, Uganda, Romania, Bénin, Ecuador and Bolivia. Each participatory research project presented by the institutions will receive a maximum amount of 20.000 euros.
Granted entities will be mentored by the InSPIRES consortium to promote the alignment with InSPIRES’ practices, as well as to promote mutual learning. Furthermore, they will have the opportunity to present their project at the final InSPIRES Conference and share their experiences and lessons learned with a variety of European-level stakeholders in the project’s final conference (spring 2021).
The final selection of the six projects was a difficult task due to the high amount of proposals received. Furthermore, many projects fulfilled the evaluation criteria and were interesting in terms of topic, alignment to the needs of different stakeholders, participatory methodologies and inclusiveness of Responsible Research and Innovation and Open Science approaches.
List of selected proposals:
- DRAXIS Environmental S.A (Thessaloniki, Greece). Topic: Air pollution
The aim is to empower citizens, and especially the elderly ones, to be involved in community air quality monitoring, interpret the collected data and protect their health from the hazardous outdoor air pollution. Elderly citizens will be involved in problem definition, data search, collection, preparation, analysis and visualization, and finally knowledge creation. They will be able to measure the outdoor air quality around them with Do-It-Yourself low-cost sensors and low-tech devices proposed by the hackAIR project. During the project they will be also able to access and visualize air quality data from heterogeneous sources.
- Kadıköy Municipality (Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey). Topic: Social resilience in disaster management
The overall aim is to foster social resilience in a neighbourhood as a response to disaster risk reduction. It also aims to strengthen local networks to create a resilient social structure, guided and supported by the local government. Some of the objectives are to increase risk perception, empower citizens and use ICT tools to make organized social response more effective.
- Gulu University. Gulu, Uganda. Topic: Solid waste management
The project will involve the youths in research about sustainable waste management with a view in creating job opportunities, identify challenges and solutions to sustainable waste management in Gulu Municipality with key stakeholders and monitor sustainable waste management.
Other objectives will be to lobby local government to strategize/target environmental issues in their planning and allocate adequate funds in the budget.
- Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania. Miercurea Ciuc, Romania. Topic: Chemical and biological characteristics and public health aspects of fog and precipitations
Development of open science strategies in Harghita County to point out, refine and implement a pilot research study concerning possible public health aspects of air pollution; assure the development of a science shop network to integrate in a systemic way the input of local actors and stakeholders into regional R&D activities; support local and regional decision making bodies with evidence-based policy recommendations and disseminate and inform the general public on participatory research actions and their results.
- Boutique des Sciences de l’Université de Parakou. Parakou, Bénin. Topic: Impacts of climate change
Build an open database of local knowledge related to climate change, collected in the form of narratives in local languages and French from 400 elders, men and women, in 100 rural villages in Africa and Haiti by 100 students supervised by 10 science shops, with the support of teachers and civil society organizations. The knowledge collected through the epicollect5 application will be transcribed, prepared and disseminated to generate either research data useful in the fight against climate change or educational or awareness materials.
- Facultad de Enfermería, Universidad Mayor de San Simón (Bolivia) and SIEDIES (Ecuador) Cochabamba, Bolivia and Quito, Ecuador. Topic: Stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV
The overall aim is to reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV within the health system in Ecuador and Bolivia simultaneously. The project will identify barriers and opportunities to move towards a free stigma and discrimination health care system, and will provide training to the nursing school about practices and concepts that are potentially stigmatizing and discriminating against people living with HIV.
More information: Open Call results (full document)
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