Interviewing the Urban Algae Project (3): Project management and advice for ECRs

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                                     UrbanAlgae
What has this international collaboration achieved for your project?
   How did you subdivide the workload? Was it organic or leader-based?
Working groups were both organic and leader based - we tried to make create a subtle leadership. Working groups need to have a lead. We tried both ways and giving a bit more leadership in this setting works well. Especially with a complex work structure (team members distributed all over Europe, mostly virtual communication) structure is needed.

   What has the citizen science part achieved? How was the turnout? (You don't need to give results if you don't want to, but a ballpark idea of participation would be interesting. Don't answer this section if you don't want to).
A citizen survey to assess how citizens perceive urban ponds and the water quality was developed in 14 different languages, and in total, we got about 2,000 valid responses from all over Europe.
The results suggest that there are similarities in the valuation of ponds characteristics, such as the shore structure e.g. whether it is natural or urban. Moreover, there might be similarities in the perception of the ecosystem services (such as flood prevention or carbon storage) and the knowledge about these ecosystem services in the first place. Unfortunately, we are not able to say more right now, because we are still in the process of analysing  the data. We expect to have first results in 2020, and a possible publication within the next 1-2 years. Keep following us on Twitter, Researchgate or save our website to your browser and you will always get the latest news and results.
           
  What is this experience teaching you about Project management?
We learned that good project planning is half of the success, and planning needs time. Looking at our milestone plan, we achieved most of them by now, and we did not have any significant setbacks so far. However, we also came across some difficulties which we had so solve and from which we learned a lot about project management.

Would you encourage other ECRs to submit collaborative projects to EFFS or other funding organizations?
  What does the funding mean to an ECR career?
A great opportunity, coupled with a big responsibility and a lot of work. You will definitely gain experiences, a new network and the chance to be a creative scientist. But also good teamwork, support and dedication are needed to do a good job.
          
 What does it mean for the funding organization?
Having an opportunity like FreshProject (which will be released very soon on the EFFS website)  is amazing and we hope this collaborative project for young researchers will continue. The overall support for that kind of projects is great and reflects on the mindset of newer generations, to be more self-determined and independent at work. For future projects, we could encourage to build a peer-coaching structure, where the past FreshProject teams act as mentors and coaches for the new teams. In our opinion, this would enhance knowledge transfer from experienced researchers to the new teams and support them to overcome difficult situations.         
  
 What is the main output that you get from UA?
Scientific output is definitely a main goal for Urban Algae project. We thrive to get new insights into the linkage of perception of urban ponds by citizens and the ecological status. We want to contribute the data and other outputs to gain a better understanding of urban aquatic ecosystems and how they affect humans, and vice versa. With the main goal to publish the scientific results, all participants will gain authorships, which is great for their CVs.

Another main output on a professional level is the collaborative network for all participants. Beneficial connections, shared expertise, peer-coaching and learning from each other are major outputs for everyone involved in the projects.

Next to the professional outputs we assume, that we all have learned lessons on a personal level and hopefully have grown with them. Whether it was by working together with new people, committing free time to the project and being dedicated or by being creative and active in working groups.
Let’s see what comes next for the Urban Algae project.



The Freshproject 3.0 call is open for proposals until 15.2.



Further reading:
a)      Urban Algae website: https://freshproject-urbanalgae.jimdofree.com
b)      EFFS and EFYR website - FreshProject 2.0 - http://www.freshwatersciences.eu/effs/index.asp?page=NEWS&Id=6&IdItem=229&p=#Content
c)      FBFW (website changes every years, because it is a volunteer-based event without a fixed leading team) - http://fbfw2019.okologia.mta.hu
d)      IGB article https://www.igb-berlin.de/en/news/urban-algae-european-young-scientists-project
e)      IGB https://www.igb-berlin.de/en
f)       NIOO https://nioo.knaw.nl/en


______________________________________________________________________________
Cleo Stratmann, Susanne Stephan, Sonia Herrero Ortega and Mandy Velthius, the coordinators of Urban Algae Project responded to an online interview written by Andrea Burfeid Castellanos. You can find more information of these amazing PIs on the Urban Algae website listed above. 

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