About the researcher in ECIE

Ana Daniel has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Aveiro and a MBA in finance from the University of Porto. She is a member of the Research Unit in Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies, and as a researcher her main interests are on entrepreneurship and gender; new venture creation; entrepreneurship education; and entrepreneurial ecosystems. During the last years, she was involved in the implementation and development of several research projects in the field of Citizen Science (ECIE- Establishing a community on empowering, inclusive, and equitable citizen science within ECIU; RESILIENT-Research nEtwork on reSILIEnt commuNiTies), entrepreneurship and regional development supported by the European Commission, as well as a number of publications have been produced in these areas.

Personal page: https://www.ua.pt/pt/govcopp/profile_005

Susana Ambrósio, PhD in Education, is a researcher in the field of science communication in Education at the Research Centre ‘Didactics and Technology in the Training of Trainers’ (CIDTFF) at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. Currently, she coordinates the project “SKG_ON | Science Communication within the Smart Knowledge Garden: enhancing Outreach in Education and Networking to foster the sustainability of CIDTFF’s research” in which she leads several initiatives of science communication in Education. She was and is a member of international projects, in different fields, such as Education (Erasmus Plus), Citizen Science (ECIU) and Science Communication (COST Action). Her previous work focused on Adult Education and Lifelong Language Learning. Currently, Science Communication is the scientific area of interest.

Researcher profile: https://en.ktu.edu/scientist/egle.butkeviciene/

Bio of Egle Butkeviciene: Egle Butkeviciene, PhD, serves as full Professor of Sociology and head of Committee for Political Science, Sociology and Public Governance Study Programs at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology. She holds a visiting professor appointment at University of Central Florida (UCF). Her research and teaching focuses on civil society issues, public governance, civic participation, social innovations, citizen science, social entrepreneurship, community development and social inclusion, environmental activism, social networks, science communication and social impact of technologies. 

Egle Butkeviciene holds Bachelor and Master degrees in Business Administration, as well as the second Master degree and PhD in Sociology. In 2022 she was awarded with a Professors name in Teaching.

Professor Butkeviciene has been leading and participating in a number of international projects. Currently she is leading KTU team in 4 H2020 / Horizon Europe projects: “Empowering Youth and Co-creating Social Innovations and Policy-Making Through Youth Citizen Social Science” (YOUCOUNT), and “Supporting Sustainable Institutional Changes to Promote Citizen Science in Science and Technology” (TIME4CS), “Catalysation of institutional transformations of Higher Education Institutions through the adoption of acceleration services” (CATALISI), and “Promoting ocean and water literacy in school communities” (ProBleu) and contributing to H2020 project “The ECIU University Research Institute for Smart European Regions“ (SMART-ER), under which she participates in two small-scale projects ““Research nEtwork on reSILIEnt commuNiTies” (RESILIENT) and  “Establishing a community on empowering, inclusive, and equitable citizen science within ECIU”(ECIE).

She is a founding member of the Citizen Science Association in Lithuania. She was appointed as expert by the Lithuanian national government for the EC H2020 Programme Committee for Societal Challenge 6 “Europe in a changing world – Inclusive, Innovative and Reflective Societies”, and served as member of Horizon 2020 Advisory Group on NMBP (Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies). Also, she served as external expert at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education Lithuania. Currently, she serves as expert evaluator for various organizations, including: the Research Council of Lithuania, and European Commission. She is an Advisory Board member in the H2020 projects “Wearables and Drones for City Socio-Environmental Observations and Behavioral Change” (Socio-BEE), “Establishing Citizen Science Hubs in European Research Performing and Funding Organisations to drive institutional change and ground Responsible Research and Innovation in society” (INCENTIVE) and “European Citizen science” (ECS). She is a national representative of Lithuania (KTU) for the International Social Survey Programme. Also, she serves as a member of EUA Expert Group on Open Science (EUA EGOS) and a contact point in Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA).

She has published over 50 articles in peer review journals and book chapters. Together with Professor Thomas Bryer, she is responsible for editing a book series "Democratic Dilemmas and Policy Responsiveness", published by Lexington Books.

Ruta Peliksiene is a PhD candidate in Sociology studies at Kaunas University of Technology. Her scientific interests include environmental sociology, sustainable development, climate change, risk sociology, and citizen science. She is currently working as a junior researcher at a project “Socio-spatial determinants of societal vulnerability and resilience to crises and strengthening the crisis response potential of communities (SERENITY)”.  

Personal page: https://en.ktu.edu/scientist/ruta.peliksiene/

Tina-Simone Neset is a Senior Associate Professor in Environmental Change and the Director of the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research at Linköping University, Sweden. Her research concerns climate change, climate vulnerability and adaptation with a methodological focus on interactive visualization, participatory processes, gaming, and citizen science. She contributes to the project with her expertise in Citizen Sensing linking to ongoing projects on urban climate adaptation and climate resilience.

Personal page: https://liu.se/en/employee/tinsc15

Victoria Wibeck is a Professor at the Department of Thematic Studies – Environmental Change and the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research at Linköping University. Her research interests include societal transformations towards sustainability, environmental and climate change communication, sense-making, and participatory methodologies. Wibeck is co-author of the monograph Sustainability Transformations: Agents and Drivers across Societies (Cambridge University Press, 2019). She has led numerous research projects, including two cross-country focus group studies including Cabo Verde, China, Fiji, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, and USA. Between Sept 2019 and March 2022 Wibeck has been the Programme Director for the international research programme The Seed Box – an environmental humanities collaboratory, funded by the Swedish Environmental Research Councils Mistra and Formas.

Karin Eliasson is a PhD student at the Department of Thematic Studies – Environmental Change, Linköping University. Her research interests include sustainability transformations in relation to food systems and resource management, visualization of environmental change and participatory methodologies.

Pauliina Lehtonen is a Senior Research Fellow in Tampere Centre for Societal Sustainability, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University. Her work concentrates on public engagement, urban governance and participatory democracy. She is especially interested in the questions of co-production of knowledge, developing practices of public engagement, and encouraging social inclusion. Currently, she studies urban segregation in sustainable transformation of urban environments. The research develops ways to contribute to sustainability transitions and recognise ways to support the well-being and inclusion of people living in suburban areas. Methodologically her expertise is on qualitative research, especially case study and action research as means to further the dialogic co-production of research. She is a member of the Participatory Budgeting Research Board of People Powered, an organisation that promotes participatory democracy globally.

Personal page: https://researchportal.tuni.fi/en/persons/pauliina-lehtonen

Patricia Farrell Donahue, Affiliate Researcher Tampere University (FI), Policy Fellow George Mason University (US), has led or contributed to over seventy peer-reviewed studies examining national policies and programs in such areas as economic, community, and international development; science and technology; health; labor; education; and finance. Her ongoing research on resident participation and community development has received multiple awards. Her other research projects focus on democracy and civil society; women in science; history of science; and higher education. She is an expert in conducting a wide variety of research methods, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, statistical analyses, etc., relating to a range of population groups and settings. She is also a trained facilitator and has organized multiple types of events where peers conducted field work, shared research results, and/or develop consensus products.

Personal page: https://www.gmu.edu/patricia-farrell-donahue

Raul Castaño de la Rosa, is a spanish interdisciplinary architect engineer with over 6 years of experience in the non-academic and academic sector where he has played a key role in teaching, researching, mentoring and exchanging knowledge on sustainability, buildings, innovative solutions and people’s quality of life. Since 2021, he is postdoctoral researcher and project manager in the Sustainable Housing design research group ASUTUT at Tampere University (Finland) where he is also Research Field Coordinator of the Resilient Communities of practices, ECIU University. His research interests include understanding how to design a more sustainable, affordable and resilient built environment. His publications can be found at researchportal.tuni.fi 

Bio Valesca Lima: Dr Valesca Lima is Assistant Professor of Politicas at the School of Law and Government. She researchers policymaking and governance with three main areas of interest: citizen participation, housing policy and social mobilisation. Her recent research has been funded by the Irish Research Council on projects relating to housing justice in Ireland and Portugal and barriers to access to affordable housing. Her work in the area of housing and urban studies focuses on the financialization of housing, social mobilisation for  housing rights and policy innovations for a more democratic and inclusive housing system. Her work is also focused on citizen inclusion at the sub-national levels, especially in contexts where participatory democracy was being implemented. This work led to the publication of the book 'Participatory Democracy and Crisis' with Palgrave. Her recent co-edited volume 'The Consequences of Brazilian Social Movements in Historical Perspectives' examines the political outcome of social movements explores the various consequences of social protest and was recently published with Routledge. Valesca Lima also work on the interconnections between political participation of vulnerable groups and have an ongoing interest in democratic innovations in Ireland, Latin America, the EU and beyond.

She's currently Editor of the International Review of Public Policy (IRPP), the open access journal of the International Public Policy Association (IPPA); co-director for Women in Research Ireland, a registered charity working for better representation of women and under-represented groups in academia; and co-convenor of the PSAI's Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group.

Personal page: https://www.dcu.ie/lawandgovernment/people/valesca-lima

Aishling Silke is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Institute of Education, St. Patrick's Campus in DCU. She is currently pursuing a PhD focusing on her main areas of interest, Early Childhood Education(ECE), policy and stakeholder participation. Aishling holds a Masters in Mentoring, Management and Leadership in the Early Years from the Technological University of Dublin, a Degree in Early Childhood from Queens University, Belfast and a Degree in Business Management from Trinity College, Dublin. Aishling is currently engage in a three year research project working in collaboration with Maynooth University aiming at empowering children, parents and educators to engage in and influence Ireland’s play policy. Aishling is also the placement coordinator for students on the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education Degree.

Link to researcher profile: https://www.dcu.ie/languageliteracyandearlychildhoodeducation/people/aishling-silke