European Union Prize for Citizen Science

On September 5th, 2024, the Institute of Literature, Folklore, and Art at the University of Latvia received an Honorary Mention for its citizen science platform for the humanities and arts, iesaisties.lv, from the European Union Prize for Citizen Science.

The ceremony took place in Linz, Austria, during the Ars Electronica Festival, a notable event celebrating art, science, and technology. Sanita Reinsone, the lead researcher at ILFA UL and the project head of iesaisties.lv, along with Ginta Pērle-Sīle, the project's activities coordinator and researcher, attended the event. Since the start of its development a decade ago, iesaisties.lv has involved a diverse group of ILFA's researchers, assistants, programmers, and artists. The platform assembles various citizen science initiatives that have attracted thousands of contributors who help digitize and process cultural heritage, explore and share valuable knowledge, exchange experiences, and engage creatively in activities like poetry recitation and traditional music interpretation. Several of these initiatives have been created in partnership with other organizations.

The European Union Prize for Citizen Science, funded by the European Commission, is a significant international recognition for projects that actively involve the public in research, innovation, and scientific creativity. This award program encourages individual contributions and strengthens the community of citizen science. This year, the competition included 288 projects from 49 countries, with three receiving the top recognition and 27, including the project from ILFA UL, earning honorary mentions.

The development of the iesaisties.lv platform was facilitated by the ERDF-funded project "Strengthening the Knowledge Society: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Public Engagement in Creating Digital Cultural Heritage" (2017-2019), No. 1.1.1.1/16/A/040; iesaisties.lv has also been further developed in the National Research Programme "Digital Humanities" project.

Last time modified: 09.09.2024 12:56:06