100 citizen science initiatives mapped in Argentina! Only three years after the beginning of the research and development portfolio in citizen science started by Co_Lab, we launched a special edition of the Mapping of Citizen Science Initiatives with 100 national projects, co-creatively developed by the Accelerator Lab of UNDP and the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MINCYT, by its Spanish acronym).

In 2021, the first edition of the Citizen Science Mapping identified 30 environmental initiatives at the national level, generating a significant impact. This achievement helped the MINCYT to get involved in the creation of the National Citizen Science Program. In its second edition, 55 initiatives were brought together from different knowledge areas, showing again that the diversity inherent to citizen science is a sign of its value and reflects that science is within everyone’s reach. The type of involvement may be different, but we achieve and learn more when we do it with others.

The potential of citizen science is huge. Just imagine having a multitude of critical thinkers, in different places, asking themselves research questions, fostering project-based learning, and building real-time monitoring tools, early warning systems, or collaborative maps, among other possibilities.