Since the start in 2017, the research presented on this blog has been unfunded, and made possible by the hospitability of the Vije Universiteit Amsterdam. But things have been changing. The exciting research findings of the past four years have made us more hungry and more ambitious. Also, the focus has shifted from a pure open science ambition towards a more inclusive science. Breaking down barriers between the university and the public: citizen science! (of course continuing as much as possible with the principles for Open Kitchen Science)
To this end, we started a foundation to strengthen this aim together with Wilbert Sybesma and Remco Kort. It was beautifully designed by Michelle Haak. https://crispatus.org/
When ZonMW (Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development) announced the Citizen Science for Health and Care (CS4GZ) program I was immediately excited. This would give us a chance to finally involve ‘normal’ interested women to learn and study their own vaginal physiology. But more importantly it would allow us to move forward with our plans to develop a probiotic to modify the vaginal microbiome. We wanted to work with a group of donors who were aware and involved, who had ownership of the product and the research and development process in all stages: citizen scientists!
A first workshop was held in September at Micropia, facilitated by a workshop-voucher by ZonMW. Find the article on their website (Dutch) https://www.zonmw.nl/nl/actueel/nieuws/detail/item/workshopvouchers-zo-besteed-je-ze/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=nieuws&utm_campaign=lsh
Since in this project we will work with a larger group of industrial partners, researchers and citizen scientists, unfortunately we will not be able to share all plans, agreements, contracts and datasets that belong to the project. But of course we will continue sharing as much as possible, also on REBLAB.
On November 9th we will apply with a consortium of partners, including several consortium partners. Fingers crossed!!!