Honorary Mention
Citizen Sensing as a source of evidence in environmental justice litigation and as a tool for environmental mediation
SensJus explores how civic environmental monitoring can turn people into ‘sentinels’ for their environment. By performing civic monitoring, people re-gain a sense of responsibility and agency towards a nature, and can gather valuable evidence for law enforcement. We combine traditional legal research with ethnography and art-based research.
Sentinels in action, Credit: Andrea Marinelli (IT). CC BY-SA 4.0
Sentinels in action, Credit: Andrea Marinelli (IT). CC BY-SA 4.0
Sentinels in action, Credit: Andrea Marinelli (IT). CC BY-SA 4.0
SensJus in primary schools, Credit: Fabrizio Biganzoli (IT). CC BY-SA 4.0
SensJus in high schools, Credit: Argonautilus (IT). CC BY-SA 4.0
SensJus Graphic novel, Credit: Jose Munoz (ES). CC BY-SA 4.0
SensJus Exhibition, Credit: Jose Munoz (ES). CC BY-SA 4.0
SensJus at public events, Credit: Caterina Selva (DE). CC BY-SA 4.0
Jury Statement
SensJus explores how civic environmental monitoring can turn people into ‘sentinels’ for their environment. By performing civic monitoring, people re-gain a sense of responsibility and agency towards nature, and can gather valuable evidence for law enforcement. Traditional legal research is combined with ethnography and art-based research. It was praised by the jury for bringing together grassroots citizens to policy makers.
European Union Prize for Citizen Science Jury 2023 (Kat Austen, Lewis Hou, Pedro Russo, Andrea Sforzi, Stefanie Wuschitz). View full Statement here.
Credits
SensJus is developed thanks to the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant n. 891513, under H2020-EU, and to the concluded research grant of the Dutch Research Council NWO, the Rubicon fellowship n. 66202117.
Biographies
Anna Berti Suman
Anna Berti Suman (IT) is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy. She is principal researcher of the project Sensing for Justice aimed at exploring the potential of civic monitoring as a source of evidence for environmental litigation and as a tool to foster environmental mediation. Previously, she led the “Sensing the Risk” PhD project at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, The Netherlands, aimed at investigating how civic monitoring can influence the governance of environmental health risk. Anna is also qualified lawyer in environmental law under the Bar of Rome, following cases at Systasis – Study Centre for the Management of Environmental Conflicts, Milan. Previously, she worked for Greenpeace International, Amsterdam, and for the Association of Affected People by Chevron-Texaco, Ecuador.
Sven Schade
Sven Schade (IT) is Scientific Project Officer at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy, where he works on public sector innovation and digital transformations. He acts as leading expert for the European arena on the use of Citizen Science for policy and other institutional purposes. Among other, Sven Schade co-chairs the Advisory Board Member of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA). Sven has (co-)authored more than 100 publications in relevant fields and has also curated numerous training programmes, such as, the Vespucci Training School on Digital Transformations in Citizen Science and Social Innovation.