Summer School 2025: Advancing Marine Biodiversity Monitoring with AI and Citizen Science
From 3 to 5 June 2025, the Aquarium of Donostia-San Sebastián hosted the 21st edition of the AZTI Summer School, centred on the role of artificial intelligence and citizen science in monitoring and assessing marine biodiversity and invasive species. Supported by six Horizon Europe projects—GES4SEAS, OBAMA-NEXT, GuardIAS, BioBoost+, ANERIS and POMP—the three-day course brought together early-career researchers, established scientists, and policy professionals to exchange knowledge and methodologies for observing marine ecosystems.
A key technical session led by OBAMA-NEXT researcher Jose Fernandes (AZTI) addressed the validation and comparison of artificial intelligence methods, reflecting the project’s commitment to scientific rigour and cross-project alignment. Later in the day, Mihailo Azhar (Aarhus University) co-facilitated a hands-on workshop focused on benthic species classification, using supervised learning and shared datasets to explore practical applications of OBAMA-NEXT tools.
The Summer School provided an opportunity to demonstrate how OBAMA-NEXT is contributing to the next generation of ecosystem observation.
