MOSAIC — Multi-site application of Open Science in the creAtion of healthy environments Involving local Communities

Planetary health requires a better understanding of the reciprocal negative effects and co-benefits between environmental changes, degradations and human health. This holds at all levels. Local communities of low- and medium-income countries, living in cross-border zones, face both the negative effects of environmental changes and degradations, impacting their health and well being, and particular socio-political contexts that enhance their vulnerability. MOSAIC states that these populations can be best suited to interpret and exploit complex and multi-thematic information about their surroundings, in order to identify and understand the impacts of the environment on their wellbeing and to develop locally feasible, acceptable, and sustainable adaptation and mitigation solutions. However, usually, access to information is weak and local communities do not necessarily have the required scientific literacy skills to fully benefit from it. MOSAIC aims to design and implement open, multimodal and replicable information ecosystems intended to support cross-border communities to i) understand the impacts of the environment on their well-being, ii) build a health-promoting environment, iii) influence public debate, public policies and public decisions. It relies on the Open Science principles, making: i) participatory and data sciences work together, with multiple disciplines and stakeholders, ii) scientists and society co-produce and make use of data and knowledge, with shared values. It will consider two bio-regions particularly affected by climate change, extreme climatic events, and land cover degradation, East Africa and the Amazon, with three cross-border study areas as “laboratory sites”. These study sites allow for implementation and evaluation of project developments, the testing of the reproducibility and reusability of methods, data and tools, and the facilitation of inter- and transdisciplinarity through the joint mobilisation of a multidisciplinary team.