Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Ukraine’s natural heritage has been faced with destruction that “can take months or years to materialise” (CEOBS & Zoï Environment Network, 2024). The unprecedented environmental damage in Ukraine has also been the subject of attention by the European Parliament which “adopted a resolution on the establishment of a tribunal on the crime of aggression against Ukraine (2022/3017(RSP)), which recognises the link between war and long-term damage to the natural environment and climate” (European Parliament, January 19, 2023).

As the war in Ukraine keeps devastating the country’s natural heritage (Yutilova et al., 2025), Ukrainian academic communities are called to reinvent their social mission to contribute to the safeguarding of Ukraine’s environment.

In this context, citizen science (CS) in an emergency context (war) provides hybrid modalities of collaboration and digital tools to empower Ukrainian university students to map and advocate for environmental damage and justice through citizen science mini-projects (Defteraiou, Boichenko, Oikonomou, Zourou, 2025).

The scope of this contribution is to delve deeper in the barriers and opportunities of collaboration modalities between university students when doing citizen science (CS) in a conflict zone (Ukraine). Student-driven CS projects have been carried out from March to July 2025, in the framework of the EU-funded GROMADA project (European universities supporting legal and community capacities for Ukraine’s environmental recovery, https://gromada-erasmus.eu/, https://gromada-erasmus.eu/citizen-science-projects/).

This contribution will showcase experiences and attitudes of students as shared via pre- and post-implementation surveys, within a 3-axis analysis: a) Hybrid collaboration modalities (on-site and online participants and various blended collaboration formats); b) Barriers and opportunities in CS in conflict areas in Ukraine; and c) Trajectories from (punctual) data observation to (regular) group collaboration and online working communities. Finally, this contribution will fill in an important gap in CS literature in doing CS in a conflict area, with a strong learning outcome, as it brings forward dimensions less (or not at all) explored by scholars so far.

References:
[1] CEOBS, Zoï Environment Network (2024). The environmental consequences of the war against Ukraine: Preliminary 12-month assessment, summary and recommendations. Preliminary twelve-month assessment (February 2022– February 2023). https://ceobs.org/the-environmental-consequences-of-the-war-against-ukraine-preli minary-12-month-assessment-summary-and-recommendations/ (Accessed November 24, 2024).
[2] European Parliament. (January 19, 2023). European Parliament resolution of 19 January 2023 on the establishment of a tribunal on the crime of aggression against Ukraine (2022/3017(RSP)). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52023IP0015
[3] Yutilova et al. (2025). Russia–Ukraine war impacts on environment: warfare chemical pollution and recovery prospects. Environ Sci Pollut Res 32, 5685–5702. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-025-36098-9
[4] Defteraiou, K., Boichenko, K., Oikonomou, S., Zourou, K. (2025). Analysis of the digital and participatory dimensions of environmental citizen science in conflict-affected communities. GROMADA consortium. https://tinyurl.com/2tjsv4dk

Keywords: Blended learning, citizen science, hybrid collaboration, war, data.