Citizen Science to Raise Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness in the Community: The Micromundo Project in Spain and Portugal

Gil-Serna, Jéssica; Cid, Ángeles; Rioboo, Carmen; Jiménez Cid, Víctor

Use this link to cite:

https://hdl.handle.net/2183/49734

Citizen Science to Raise Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness in the Community: The Micromundo Project in Spain and Portugal

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Cid_Ángeles_2025_ Citizen_Science_Raise_Antimicrobial_Resistance_Awareness_Community.pdf (2.28 MB)

Identifiers

URI: https://hdl.handle.net/2183/49734

DOI: 10.1111/1751-7915.70123

Publication date

2025-03-04

Authors

Gil-Serna, Jéssica

Cid, Ángeles

Rioboo, Carmen

Jiménez Cid, Víctor

Bibliographic citation

Gil-Serna, J., Antunes, P., Campoy, S., Cid, Á., Cobo-Molinos, A., Durão, P., Fajardo, C., Fouz, B., Freitas, A.R., Grosso, F., de Groot, P.W.J., de Miguel, T., Zorn, B.G., Hinojosa, B., Leão, M.J., Llagostera, M., de Llanos, R., Lucía, A., Maicas, S., Marín, I., Martínez-Cañamero, M., Miranda, C., Molina-Guijarro, J.M., Moreno, D.A., de los Llanos Palop, M., Pérez-Álvarez, M.J., Pereira, P.M., Pérez-Gracia, M.T., Quinteira, S., Rioboo, C., Robredo, B., Rodríguez-Calleja, J.M., de la Haba, R.R., Sánchez, S., Angulo, M.S., Sánchez-Porro, C., Sangari, F.J., Santos, B., Silveira, E., Vicedo, B., Cid, V.J. and all members of MicroMundo Teams in Spain and Portugal (2025), Citizen Science to Raise Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness in the Community: The MicroMundo Project in Spain and Portugal. Microb. Biotechnol., 18: e70123. https://doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.70123

Abstract

[Abstract] Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a global threat to human, animal and environmental health. Among the multidisciplinary tasks aimed at collectively tackling the AMR crisis, surveillance, research and education stand as major priorities. Based on a crowdsourcing research strategy, the Micro Mundo project, a partner of the Tiny Earth initiative in Spain and Portugal, has been developed and consolidated with success in the academic environment. The objectives are focused on promoting research and, especially, on bringing knowledge of One Health and microbiology concepts, as well as AMR awareness to the community. Following a service-learning approach, Micro Mundo integrates university and secondary/high school students in a citizen science-based research project to collectively isolate microorganisms with the potential to produce new antibiotics from soil environments. Over the last 7 years, 32 Micro Mundo hubs operating across 31 different Portuguese and Spanish universities have recruited thousands of teenagers in this quest. Here we review the outcome of this unprecedented effort from a scientific and an educational perspective.