Citizens in the driving seat on solar energy

The world is increasingly demanding a shift towards a sustainable energy system that uses renewable sources, like the sun. During the past couple of years, solar-energy technology has experienced a dramatic price drop thanks to research and innovation. Today, it can compete on the market with fossil-based energy in many regions of the world.

But there is still a long road until we use the sun as one main energy source. By developing six innovative solar energy solutions, the project GRECO is here to start changing that.

However, to achieve such goal, GRECO engineers, chemists, physicists need the help from citizens. This is called citizen science. The inclusion of society in the decision-making, design, implementation, analysis and exploitation of research or innovation. It is therefore an active process in which science is co-created with citizens.

GRECO would like citizens to be in the driver’s seat of solar energy research. To do so, we have opened a call for ideas!

By answering three questions like ‘How could you participate in research activities related to solar energy?’ you can help us develop a platform to include citizens in the research process of our partners and hopefully in the entire solar-energy community.

Share your thoughts and spread the word!

#empowering #CitizensInScience @ProjectGreco @ccupf

More information: The Science, Society and Communication Centre of the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) is part of the GRECO project, a European initiative that gets together six different countries in order to put Open Science into practice in photovoltaic research and innovation. GRECO wants to demonstrate that a stronger social involvement leads to an improved use and acceptance of innovative products in photovoltaics. Based on the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation and citizen participation, GRECO proposes solutions to increase solar panels useful life, reduce the costs, increase performance and support new uses in agriculture and architecture. GRECO is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program under grant contract number 787289.

Este blog cuenta con la colaboración de la Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación