Projects

Every observation counts! The City Nature Challenge (short: CNC) is an annual nature competition between regions that takes place in spring (usually at the end of April, beginning of May) and is held simultaneously in various cities and regions worldwide. On four consecutive days, people around the world document the…

Due to the enormous request and the multitude of consignments of fossil images encompassing almost the entire Earth history, the precise issues and the resulting project target were adapted in accordance to the requirements and wishes oft he citizen scientists. The geographical and chronological distribution of fossils in Austria is…

Have you ever seen a sparrow hawk in Vienna? Did a badger cross your path on your way home at night? Or do you have swallow nests at your housing complex? We are interested in your observations in Austrian cities! The project works specifically in urban areas. With the help…

Karst and cave documentation The year 2021 has been declared the International Year of Caves and Karst by the UIS (Union Internationale de Spéléologie)! In the framework of this, some actions will also take place in Austria: You can find more information here. The Working Group on Karst and Caves…

Visitors of the Cumberland game park in Grünau im Amtal (Upper Austria) are warmly invited to use an app to enter sightings and behavioural observations of greylag geese, common ravens and northern bald ibises and thus support current research projects and the long-term monitoring of the Konrad Lorenz Research Center…

Research with new plant aarivals from all over the world DURATION: 01.05.2020 - 30.04.2023 In a first-of-its-kind approach in Europe, pupils in the district of Liezen are researching and documenting the phenological development of invasive neophytes under the influence of climate change. With the help of experts, they develop and…

Can tea help us understand climate change? Yes, but we need your help! We would like you to become our research partner and take part in one of the largest experiments on soil decomposition processes at the moment!

CrowdWater is a hydrological citizen science project of the University of Zurich. CrowdWater uses an app to collect data about water. No prior knowledge is required to participate. What is the project about? CrowdWater stands for independent and reliable data collection by anyone with an interest in water. The observations collected…

What is the Zeit.shift project about?  Zeit.Shift is an Interreg project of the Provincial Library Dr. Friedrich Teßmann, the University and Provincial Library Tyrol and the research institute Eurac Research with the aim of computer-linguistically indexing historical newspapers from the Tyrolean region together with Citizen Scientists and publishing them online.…

Participatory exploration of the "Kremser scorpion” (Euscorpius tergestinus) with school students "Triestino scorpion" (Euscorpius tergestinus - still listed as E. carpathicus in the Red List of NÖ), which are threatened with extinction in Lower Austria, exists as an archaeozoon in Krems. This population is an isolated north-eastern outpost of the…

Archaeological finds of textile remains give an insight into ancient weaving techniques, including fabrics from the Hallstatt salt mine dating from between 1500 and 300 BC, or finds of gold threads such as those from Ebreichsdorf in Lower Austria, ca. 1100 BC. They are scientifically analysed and reworked in the…

Schmetterlinge Österreichs: an app for scientifically recording Austria's butterflies On behalf of Blühendes Österreich, a charitable foundation of REWE International AG and the environmental NGO GLOBAL 2000, butterfly expert Peter Huemer published a report on the dramatic state of the butterfly fauna in May 2016. In Europe, their number had…

Which are the most common bee viruses in Austria and are these viruses related to winter losses of local bee colonies? To answer these questions, 200 beekeepers from all over Austria are working as Citizen Scientists in the "virus monitoring" for three years (2018-2020). Each year in September they collect…

A project of the Viennese environmental protection department No doubt: the first swallows and swifts have returned from Africa to breed in Vienna. Other species, like house sparrow and jackdaw, have spent the winter with us and have already occupied their breeding places. House Martin building a nest © Ferdinand…

1. Description Take part in a Citizen Science Project, in which your cat will play the main role! According to current knowledge, any kind of damage or addiction to catnip can be ruled out – the administration of catnip to the cat is completely harmless. The experiment requires about 20…

We are tracing the Sculptured Resin Bee! Home of the Sculptured Resin Bee (Megachile sculpturalis, Smith 1853) is far away in Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan. In 2008, the Sculptured Resin Bee was discovered in southern France as the first introduced wild bee species in Europe. Since then, the bee…

In this citizen science project of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, we would like to create an overview of where animals are roadkilled and what reasons there might be for this. In the Roadkill project, we would like to cooperate with you in many ways, because…

The project „Innovationswerkstatt Neu Leopoldau“ (short: Werkstatt Neu Leopoldau) accompanies the settlement of the urban neighborhood in Vienna’s 21st district as applied research. The phase of arrival of residents and users in the district is to be investigated and co-designed as a potential for social sustainability in Viennese housing. In addition…

DeVOTE is a research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) from January 2021 to December 2025, and led by Ass.-Prof. Carolina Plescia to develop and apply a new approach to study what ‘voting’ means for ordinary citizens. The project’s goals are: understand what ‘voting’ means for ordinary citizens; examine the variation…

Important groundwork for bird protection The association BirdLife Austria has been researching and protecting the native avifauna for over 50 years. Citizen science has always been an essential basis of this work, as BirdLife's expertise is based on decades of collecting bird records. In the past, observations were recorded on…

Annual counts This advanced citizen science project requires knowledge of the common native breeding bird species and participation over several years. Twice a year, the participants count all birds seen and heard at fixed points. The total of all counts is then used to calculate population trends. The available data…

The Austria-wide winter bird count Every year, the BirdLife bird protection organisation invites all of Austria to take part in the nationwide winter bird count. All nature lovers are invited to count birds for an hour over four days until 6 January. At the same time, participants can actively contribute…

“Explore the European landscape and help science to protect the climate and the environment!” Do you like to be out in the fresh air? Would you like to make a concrete contribution to protect the environment and the climate and earn something in addition? With the FotoQuestGo app, you can…

On Geo-Wiki.org you can participate in global environmental monitoring and help to observe and document the earth and what happens on it on a large scale. Whether it is deforestation, the varying size of fields in agriculture or the fast and precise evaluation of hurricane damage - your contribution is…

Reporting and collecting dead songbirds You find a dead songbird in your garden? Your cat brings home a dead bird? If you are in this situation, you can support a current research project of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. Avian malaria Within the framework of the Citizen-Science project "Avian…

Nan-O-Style is a research and education project by the University of Salzburg, Department of Biosciences. What is Nan-O-Style researching? Nan-O-Style researches the complex topic of nanotechnology. Together with Austrian schools, we want to discover new and previously unknown interactions between modern lifestyle products and nanomaterials. Are there undesirable interactions and…

Be an expert on your disease and join our research with us! We, the Patient Involvement in Oncology (PATIO) initiative, want to make the voices of prostate cancer patients and their caregivers heard in medical research. In fact, we know that we currently don’t know enough: you are the experts…

ExploreAT! - exploring Austrias culture through the language glass The exploreAT! project aims to provide unique insights into the diversity of the German language (especially in Austria). With the help of innovative digital tools, a unique collection of Bavarian dialects in the region of the former Habsburg Monarchy (1911-1998) is…

We invite urban community gardens, garden projects or similar garden initiatives to take part in this project and research alongside us. The goal of this project is to scientifically assess the potential risk of heavy metal contamination in crop plants in Vienna’s city gardens. Background Urban gardening has become increasingly…

This project has already been completed. You can download the final report at the bottom of this page. In “Tell us!”, we are looking for research questions on accidental injuries. Medical advances need innovative ideas: your knowledge is valuable! Who knows best how occupational, traffic-related or sports injuries should be…

“Homegrown - There is nothing like a homegarden” Project description With their variety of plant species and the experience of the gardeners, rural home gardens constitute an integral component of the cultivated landscape in the Lienz district, East Tyrol. Together with pupils of the BG/BRG Lienz school (and biology, math/physics…

The kestrel is the most common raptor in the city of Vienna. Since 2010, the "Vienna Kestrel Project" has been investigating how these falcons have adapted to city life. A key component of our research is knowledge about nest locations which allow us to access broods for further investigation. The…

Project description The Pollen Diary (www.pollentagebuch.at; www.pollendiary.com; Patient's Hayfever Diary) was already launched as a scientific project in 2009. Meanwhile it has become an important service for pollen allergy sufferers in 13 European countries: Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey. The…

Amphibians and reptiles under observation in Austria Importance and evaluability of databases increase with the extent, the precision and the currency of the data stored. The Natural History Museum Vienna, one of the largest non-university research institutions in Austria, houses more than 30 million objects from the fields of biology,…

In the Institute of Silviculture at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, the occurrence, spread, causes and characteristics of forest fires in Austria have been analysed as part of various research projects since 2008. The array stretches back over several decades and includes approximately 5,500 fires, more…

With the Citizen Science Project "CITREE" a crowdsourcing instrument for monitoring the growth of urban trees, will be developed and used. It builds on the "Sparkling Science" project "Woody Woodpecker", which deals with the growth, structure and function of wood. Urban trees fulfill a variety of functions, such as improving…

What is the project specifically about? So much hangs on just one thing - and yet words sometimes fail us. How do we talk about our bodies and the things that we need, want, and do when it comes to sex and sexual pleasure? And who do we talk to…