Environmental Ecology and Applied Microbiology

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News

Open acces book: The Science of Citizen Science

Roeland Samson is one of the editors of a new open access book: The Science of Citizen Science. This book is the result of intensive collaboration and exchange within a European network on citizen science. Within this COST-action project more than 100 authors from 24 countries contributed. This Springer book offers higher education institutions the opportunity to reflect on both the substantive contributions to research and the societal added value of citizen science. In addition, the book offers practical support for the implementation of projects and also addresses emerging topics such as Citizen Science and Artificial Intelligence.

  • You can find the new book here.
  • Read the full press release here.


Academic Council for Service to Society Award 2019

Roeland Samson and Sarah Lebeer receive the Academic Council for Service to Society Award from the University of Antwerp for their citizen science projects 'AIRbezen' and 'Ferme Pekes' , together with Ivan Janssens (Knappe k(n)oppen) and Filip Meysman (Curieuzeneuzen). In the 'AIRbezen' project, citizens help to assess local air quality by caring for and sampling a strawberry plant. It started in 2014 in Antwerp and laid the seed for many follow-up projects in Flanders (e.g. AIRbezen East Flanders 2017 and AIRbezen@School 2018) and abroad (e.g. Vigilantes del Cierzo in Spain). In the project 'Ferme pekes' citizens were invited to ferment carrot juice at home, to get an idea of the bacterial composition of fermented carrot juice.

Sander Wuyts laureate for EOS-pipet

April 2019

Sander Wuyts discovered that fermented carrot juice contains a wide variety of lactic acid bacteria, and that these healthy bacteria boost the immune system. For his research, Wuyts enlisted the help of fourteen volunteers, who fermented carrot juice in their own kitchen. Wuyts used their input as a data source.Bacteria in fermented food, such as yoghurt or cheese, are said to be good for one's health. Wuyts' research is an important addition to the limited number of studies that have already been conducted into this.