EC awards 2025 EU Prize for Citizen Science to three projects

The European Commission has announced the winners of the 2025 EU Prize for Citizen Science. This is the third edition of the EU Prize for Citizen Science. The prize recognises outstanding initiatives that enact change, expand knowledge, and address social, political, cultural, and environmental challenges through the involvement of citizens in research and innovation. For this edition, the Award received 409 applications from 58 countries.

Out of the 409 applications, three citizen science initiatives received the main prizes and 27 were recognised with honorary mentions. 

The winners are the following:

• The ‘Grand Prize’, worth €60,000, goes to the project HEROINES for the impressive inclusion of Roma women in the process of empowering their emancipation in Serbia, by developing a community mapping tool to gather rarely shared oral stories and co-produce knowledge difficult to obtain by other means.
• The Digital Communities prize, worth €20,000, is awarded to Antiquake Risk Hunter Community for involving a wide range of actors, including residents of a neighborhood in Istanbul, to foster disaster preparedness by collecting geolocated data using open-source tools.
• The Diversity & Collaboration prize, worth €20,000, is given to Museum of Food Waste - MoFWaste for engaging with students, educators, and school canteen staff in Portugal and making children owners of the project to reduce and prevent food waste, with methods and activities easily replicable elsewhere.

The Prize is awarded by the Horizon Europe project IMPETUS, as part of its work to support and give recognition to citizen science. The winners were selected by an independent jury of five experts.

The participation of citizens in scientific research activities “is growing in maturity with an increasing number of projects delving into local issues and coming from social sciences and humanities,” said the jury. The jury also noted that while recurring topics such as biodiversity, air quality, and litter monitoring remained relevant, there was increased public engagement in new areas including disaster risk reduction, food security, healthcare provision, energy transition, and oral and urban histories. Several applications came from projects that involved groups who are too often marginalised from the processes of knowledge-making, demonstrating the value of collaborating with citizens across all stages of research. 

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EC DG RTD - news

Announcement of the 2025 EU Prize for Citizens Science’s winners

2025 EU Prize for Citizens Science’s winners and honorary mentions