Dr. Ana Slavec, InnoRenew CoE, UP IAM researcher, attended the conference Open Knowledge: Wikimedia & Research in the CEE Region, held 9-10 October 2026 in Katowice, Poland.

Dr. Slavec presented a talk entitled Participatory Approaches to Cultural Heritage Protection: Lessons from Citizen Science Projects in a session on open data, open infrastructure and open science.

The presentation drew on experiences from two citizen science projects focused on cultural heritage. While one project focused primarily on public participation in data collection, the other involved citizens in data interpretation and knowledge co-creation, demonstrating how local perspectives and lived experience can complement professional expertise in cultural heritage research.

The conference brought together members of the Wikimedia community and researchers working with or studying Wikimedia projects to exchange ideas on open knowledge, open science and the democratisation of knowledge. The event was co-organised by Wikimedia Polska and Wikimedia Ukraine, in partnership with the University of Silesia and with support from the Wikimedia CEE Hub.