Imme Ruarus
Imme Ruarus is the lead of the Smart Citizens Lab at research and design organisation Waag Futurelab. Ruarus researches how citizens can use technology to take ownership of their living environments and how this creates new forms of collaboration between citizens, governments and knowledge institutions. Her expertise is on 'citizen sensing', in which citizens use open-source tools to measure their living environment and learn to interpret the data. The data give citizens a stronger position in the conversation with governments, knowledge institutions and companies about a healthy living environment.
Imme Ruarus co-leads the Industrial emissions Living Lab in Pillar III with Mercedes Leipoldt. The Living Lab is located in the IJmond Region, where citizen science collaboration Hollandse Luchten has been active since 2018. Ruarus works closely with local communities, policymakers and knowledge institutes in the area. Within the Living Lab, activities are constantly being organised around joint monitoring plans focused specifically on factory operations and shipping, collaborative data-analysis and creating action perspectives for all stakeholders. Based on the needs of the stakeholders, tools will be co-developed for monitoring air quality in collaboration with Pillar I. The aim is to increase citizens and local governments agency to collectively monitor, analyse and make policies around air quality.
"In ExpAct we will connect citizen science and technology development, because successful citizen science doesn’t start with citizens using sensors to collect data. It starts with a reciprocal collaboration between local communities, researchers and policymakers to make sure societal values are the very foundation of citizen science, and thus the development of technology"
