The GROMADA Project: Citizen Science for Environmental Protection and Accountability in Ukraine

Mar 19, 2025 | Iryna Babanina and Doug Weir
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Participatory environmental monitoring in areas affected by armed conflict has always been an important area of interest for CEOBS. Alongside documenting the severe environmental damage caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we are also exploring the potential of low cost and locally-driven data collection where state monitoring capacities are overstretched or where physical access is limited.

The GROMADA project is a partnership between CEOBS, the universities of Copenhagen, Hamburg and Lund, Italian NGO Systasis and Greek education company Web2Learn. The project has brought together academics, lawyers, civil society activists and students to explore the potential of citizen science to detect war-related harms in Ukraine. Another crucial component of the GROMADA project is its focus on civic evidence collection for legal accountability.

The first half of the project focused on learning, educating Ukrainian and international participants through webinars on how the environment is damaged by war, and on the legal framework protecting the environment in relation to armed conflicts. CEOBS’ contributed two webinars to the extensive series, one on how wars affect the environment and on the pattern of harm in Ukraine, and a second on using environmental data that is already available for civic monitoring in Ukraine, legislative changes during the war, and mechanisms for citizen participation in post-war recovery planning.