A report by the Policy Support Facility gives recommendations to scale up Citizen Science with the potential to increase societal impact and trust in science.
Citizen Science, the voluntary participation of non-professional scientists in research and innovation, can increase impact of science and trust in science, and contributes to Open Science. It is part of the closely linked ERA Action 14 ‘Bring Science Closer to Citizens’ of the New European Research Area (ERA), and just recently the European Commission has launched a call to conduct preparatory work for the launch of Europe-wide citizen science campaigns, including quadruple helix stakeholders, and in synergy with the EU Missions, which have the potential to mobilise EU citizens around common goals. Additionally, there are several existing initiatives and tools on the EU level, including a dedicated Online Platform, to strengthen Citizen Science.
In this context, on 18 January 2023, the Policy Support Facility published a thematic report on ‘Scaling up Citizen Science’. It analyses meanings, dimensions, models, approaches and strategies of scalability in Citizen Science, as well as factors that support and hinder upscaling. It also provides a multi-dimension qualitative definition of scaling up and includes a Responsible and Inclusive Scalability Framework.
The findings of the report are based on information collected through a mixed methods approach, including a literature review, interviews conducted with key experts in the field of Citizen Science and related disciplines, a survey with the Mutual Learning Exercise (MLE) ‘Citizen Science Initiatives – Policy and Practice’ (CSI-PP) country representatives, and three working sessions with MLE CSI-PP participants in Berlin in November 2022. Eleven Member States and associated countries to Horizon Europe, namely, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, and Sweden, participated in the MLE.
Factors identified to be beneficial for upscaling Citizen Science, are among others: i. common objectives, ii. interesting, funny and recognisable projects, iii. initiatives drawn on national or European networks or that allow to establish partnerships with educational organisations, iv. acknowledgement of citizens’ expertise, v. protocols and toolkits that are adaptable and easy to implement in the different local contexts, vi. awareness of trade-offs between the control over the project, data outcome and impact on scalability and the readiness to lose some control over the project and its methodology. The most identified challenges for upscaling are linked to the scientific reputation of Citizen Science, the availability of funding for upscaling projects at the EU or local level, and the lack of political will and engagement of people locally.
The report provides recommendations to address current challenges and to support the upscaling of Citizen Science projects and initiatives across Europe; specifically, i. rethinking of the meaning of innovation in Citizen Science and the adoption and promotion of a multi-dimensional qualitative definition of scalability, ii. reinforcement of the implementation of different models, approaches, and strategies of scalability, iii. the development of local, regional, national, and European networks, and iv. support for the use of citizen-generated data from (up) scaled citizen sciences projects and initiatives.
Finally, it concludes that upscaling needs to be a responsible and inclusive process that depends on the context and domain and that should be aligned with the logic of the projects and initiatives, which are driven by common scientific questions and social challenges.