Berlin Citizen Science
Citizen Science is research conducted with participation from the general public, nonprofessional researchers, or participants in science, social science, urban planning, and many other disciplines. Citizen science can be used as a methodology where public volunteers help in collecting and classifying data, improving the scientific community's capacity. Participation in citizen science projects also educates the public about the scientific process and increases awareness about different topics.
“Your Emotional City” is where science is collaborative and participation is open to everyone.
Cities trigger emotions in us – pleasant and unpleasant. On the one hand, they offer opportunities for development, culture, and prosperity. They are political, economic, and scientific centers. But they also have another side, they are often anonymous or dirty, they contain injustice, crime and violence. Cities stimulate us, and they challenge us. Sometimes, they cause stress. Some even make them sick. But they also fascinate us. Everything has an impact on our psyche and health.
In the Citizen Science project “Your Emotional City,” we want to find out how citizens feel, decipher the feelings in specific streets, squares, neighborhoods, and parks, and gain insights into cities in general. Together, we will find out what will make cities of the future places worth living in.
The citizen science strategy of "Your Emotional City" centers on creating a participatory platform where citizens play an integral role in the project’s design, implementation, and outcomes, making it a project not just for citizens but also with them at its core.
Utilizing Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) methods, the project invites citizens to contribute to real-time, context-sensitive data collection about their emotional experiences within urban spaces. This citizen-centered approach seeks to improve mental health by understanding the emotional effects of various urban settings, bridging academia, medical institutions, society, and policy into ongoing dialogue.
The project adopts an interdisciplinary approach, combining psychology, urban planning, sociology, and digital tools to create a holistic framework for assessing urban mental well-being. Rather than simply viewing citizen science as a recruitment tool, "Your Emotional City" makes it the project's foundation, fostering active community involvement and shaping research outcomes to reflect the lived experiences of the population.
Show us your city for a week!
If you take part in the study, our app will accompany you through your urban life for a week. We will send you a short questionnaire up to three times a day for 7 days. We ask about...
...your current emotional well-being,
...how your environment affects your emotions,
...how do you feel about your environment at the moment (full, loud, or maybe very green?),
...a photo of the item or object that is most affecting your emotions at the moment.
We also collect your current location for every survey (of course, only if you allow us to do so in the settings beforehand!). We then use the GPS data to add environmental data to each of your answers, for example, about the current weather, traffic, or air pollution at your location.
“Your Emotional City” is a joint project of Interdisziplinäres Forum Neurourbanistik e. V., Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Futurium, House of the Futures. Funded by the Berlin University Alliance as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments.
Learn more about the objectives of the project “Your Emotional City” with Dr. Shadi Bagherzadeh Azbari: ‘ https://futurium.de/de/blog/wir-erfassen-die-gefuehle-der-menschen-in-echtzeit
Upcoming Events
No upcoming Events At the Moment.
Stay Tuned — Updates Will Be Posted Here!
In The Meantime, Feel Free To Follow Our Project Deine Emotionale Stadt On Instagram For News And Insights.
Engagements 2025
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BERLIN 2050 – WIE SIEHT DIE GESUNDE STADT DER ZUKUNFT AUS?
Workshop with Dr. Shadi Bagherzadeh Azbari
February 20th, 2025 at Futurium
Dr. Shadi Bagherzadeh Azbari, Senior Researcher of “Your Emotional City,” shared insights into the project’s vision. Attendees engaged in discussions on urban mental well-being, exploring scientific insights and initial study results. The event fostered an interactive exchange on urban development, stress, loneliness, and mental health.
(Photo by: Michael Schulte).
Engagements 2024
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From Lab To City: Exploring Emotions Within “Your Emotional City”’
Speech given by Dr. Shadi Bagherzadeh Azbari
November 25th, 2024 at WINS Adlershof
Dr. Shadi Bagherzadeh Azbari, Senior Researcher of “Your Emotional City,” shared insights into the project’s vision and goals and engaged in thoughtful conversations about the prospects and obstacles of urban living in the modern era.
(Photo by: Julia Baier/ HU)
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Civic Data Community - Espresso Runde - Deine Emotionale Stadt
Guest-Talk with Dr. Shadi Bagherzadeh Azbari
November 12th, 2024 Hybrid
Dr. Shadi Bagherzadeh Azbari, was invited as a guest speaker to the Civic Data Community, where she introduced the project and talked about its goals, as well as engaging in discussions about chances and challenges of living in a modern city.
(Photo by: Donya Joshani)
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Akademietag - 'Living in Healthy Cities – Living Healthily in Cities’
Panel-Talk with Prof. Dr. Mazda Adli
November 6th, 2024 at Akademietag
Our project ”Your Emotional City” took part in the ‘Akademietag’. As part of the motto 'Living in Healthy Cities – Living Healthily in Cities’, we introduced our project and engaged in exciting disucssions about urban living and mental health with a highlight being the Panel-Talk “Healthy City, Healthy Mind”
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Looping Workshop with Futurium & BENN Hakenfelde
Workshop
October 30th & November 6th, 2024
Our project “Your Emotional City” launched its first “Looping Workshop” with a partnership between Futurium and BENN Hakenfelde. The first session of the two-part-Workshop began with a guided tour of the exhibition in Futurium. The second session that took place at BENN Hakenfelde,
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Internal Colloquium - Your Emotional City
Panel-Talk with Richard Sennet
Oktober 8th, 2024
Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, former University Professor of the Humanities at New York University and author of "The Open City" (2019), Richard Sennet, participated in the internal colloquium with our project ‘Your Emotional City’, where together we discussed the results of our project and envisioned new strategic steps for the future.
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Lange Nacht der Museen
Interactive Stand
August 24, 2024 at Futurium
Lange Nacht der Museen took place in Berlin, and we had the opportunity to participate with our project ‘Your Emotional City’ at Futurium. A highlight of our stand was the interactive stress map of Berlin. Visitors could mark specific locations in the city, where they experienced significant stress, but also places where they feel relaxed.
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48H Neukölln - Urban Silence
Festival participation
June 29th and 30th, 2024,
The team of ‘Your Emotional City’ was invited to be part of “48h Neukölln”. Under the theme of the 2024 festival edition, “Urban Silence”, the team encouraged contemplation of the role of mental health in urban environments and how social or architectural factors in the city may affect the stress perception of the citizens.
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Kiezlabor - CityLab Berlin - Berlin Senate Chancellery
Kiezlabor
May 27th and 31st, 2024
The team of ‘Your Emotional City’ was part of the Kiezlabor and engaged in a variety of exchanges about the relevance of health prevention and mental well-being, as well as addressing and discussing concerns about health issues in urban districts and their implications for future initiatives and research.
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WIE DIE STADT AUF UNSERE PSYCHE WIRKT
Workshop with Dr. Shadi Bagherzadeh Azbari and Sephira Kolbe
March 6th, 2024 at Futurium
The ‘Your Emotional City’ team hosted an Workshop at Futurium, where the project's aims were presented. Attendees engaged in discussions on urban mental well-being, exploring scientific insights and initial study results. The event fostered an interactive exchange on urban development, stress, loneliness, and mental health.
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Workshop with BENN, Quartiersmanagement and the City governance
Workshop
February 23th, 2024
Over 30 colleagues from various neighborhood initiatives, such as BENN, Quartiersmanagement, and city governance, convened in a workshop with the 'Your Emotional City' team to explore citizen science methodologies.
During the session, participants delved into recruitment strategies, identified challenges and obstacles in project dissemination and brainstormed.
Former intern:
„As an intern with a background in psychology, I was able to gain diverse insights into scientific work processes and experience how interdisciplinary collaboration is shaped in a collaborative and open environment.“
Former intern:
"Working with Deine Emotionale Stadt allowed me to explore Why urban environments impact emotional well-being and to contribute to a project that bridges psychological insight with urban Planning."
Former Interns Of Our Project:
Jana Schweitzer (Student of TU Darmstadt in the field of Architecture)
Louis Teber (Student of HU Berlin in the field of Psychology)
Collaboration with a student group from University of the Arts Berlin as part of a final project: Charlotte Blanke, Henrike Dietershagen, Merle von Meltzer, Michael Schulte and Selma Louise Christoph
Are you interested in how exactly we approach the data? Then visit one of our citizen science workshops, which we regularly hold together with the Futurium - House of Futures in Berlin. Under Events you can always find the next scheduled appointments.