Publications

Nov 15, 2021 Article

Follow the scientists? How beliefs about the practice of science shaped COVID-19 views

by Thomas G. Safford , Emily H. Whitmore , Lawrence C. Hamilton

“Follow the science” became the mantra for responding to COVID-19 pandemic. However, for the public this also meant “follow the scientists”, and this led to uneasiness as some viewed scientists as not credible. We investigate how beliefs about the way scientists develop their findings affect pandemic-related views. Our analysis shows that beliefs about scientists' objectivity predict views regrading coronavirus-related risks, behavioral changes, and policy priorities. While political party identity also predicts views about COVID-19-related concerns, these vary by political leaders whose approaches embraced versus dismissed science-based strategies, highlighting the importance of perceptions of scientists in shaping pandemic-related attitudes and beliefs.

Volume 20Issue 072021

Nov 08, 2021 Practice Insight

Boundary spanners and thinking partners: adapting and expanding the research-practice partnership literature for public engagement with science (PES)

by Karen Peterman , Sarah Garlick , John Besley , Sue Allen , Kathy Fallon Lambert , Nalini M. Nadkarni , Mark S. Rosin , Caitlin Weber , Marissa Weiss , Jen Wong

This paper is the culmination of several meaning-making activities between an external researcher, PES practitioners, and social scientist researchers who considered the unique contributions that can be made through RPPs on PES (that is, research-practice partnerships on public engagement with science). Based on the experiences from three RPP projects, the group noted that the PES context may be particularly suited to RPPs, and identified the importance of working as thinking-partners who support reciprocal decision-making. Recommendations are made in support of using these approaches to advance practical knowledge-building and reduce shared frustrations about the disconnect between research and practice in PES.

Volume 20Issue 072021

Nov 02, 2021 Article

The matter of complex anti-matter: the portrayal and framing of physics in Dutch newspapers

by Sanne Willemijn Kristensen , Julia Cramer , Alix McCollam , W. Gudrun Reijnierse , Ionica Smeets

Physics is often perceived as difficult, but there has been little research on how physics is reported in the media. In this two-stage content analysis, we examine the portrayal of physics in five major Dutch newspapers. Results show that astronomy and astrophysics is the most prominent field. Furthermore, newspaper articles are triggered almost equally by scientific and non-scientific events. Finally, the majority of described physics concepts are framed as difficult, but journalists do provide explanations for them.

Volume 20Issue 072021

Oct 25, 2021 Article

“Science Festival” may not mean what we think it means: an analysis of how researchers and practitioners use this term

by J. Ross Ramsey , Todd Boyette

The modern science festival movement has grown significantly since the Edinburgh International Science Festival launched in 1989. Hundreds of science festivals now occur annually and vary widely. This article examines how the term “science festival” is used within research and practice. We find that most research articles fail to describe the science festivals they study. A subsequent analysis of festival websites and other publicly available information confirms the wide variability of science festival formats, which suggests the need for descriptive information about science festivals in scholarly work.

Volume 20Issue 072021

Oct 11, 2021 Article

Reaching the limits of co-creation in citizen science — exemplified by the linguistic citizen humanities project ‘On everyone’s mind and lips — German in Austria’

by Barbara Heinisch

Co-creation aims at integrating citizens in the entire research process. The citizen linguistics project German in Austria tests this approach in the humanities based on the assumption that language is ubiquitous. The project combines different forms of public participation, including a co-created format, where citizens can raise (and answer) research questions about the German language in Austria and a linguistic treasure hunt, where citizens collect and analyze data on linguistic landscapes. However, co-creation was hard to implement. Despite a high number of participants, their willingness to contribute to more than one research step was low.

Volume 20Issue 062021Special Issue: Third International ECSA Conference, Trieste 2020 (Ecsa Conference 2020)

Oct 11, 2021 Article

Agenda 2030's, “Leave no one behind”, in citizen science?

by Madeleine Montanari , Liesbet Jacobs , Mordechai Haklay , Felix Kwabena Donkor , Maria Rosa Mondardini

Citizen science (CS) is promoted as a useful practice for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this contribution we explore how CS aligns to the SDGs overarching pledge to ‘Leave no one behind’. We propose a framework to evaluate exclusionary processes in CS. We interlink three dimensions of CS inspired by existing CS typologies with five factors underpinning exclusionary processes. With this, we are able to situate existing literature on various exclusionary effects in CS within a structured framework. We hope this contribution sparks a discussion and inspires practitioners’ reflections on a more inclusive practice in CS.

Volume 20Issue 062021Special Issue: Third International ECSA Conference, Trieste 2020 (Ecsa Conference 2020)

Oct 11, 2021 Article

Citizen science and crowdsourcing in the field of marine scientific research — the MaDCrow project

by Paolo Diviacco , Antonio Nadali , Massimiliano Nolich , Andrea Molinaro , Massimiliano Iurcev , Rodrigo Carbajales , Alessandro Busato , Alessandro Pavan , Lorenzo Grio , Francesca Malfatti

Marine research is as important as very demanding since it requires expensive infrastructures and resources. Scientific institutions, on the contrary, have very limited funding so that the seas remain, still, mostly unexplored. Another serious concern is that society at large often resonates with fake news, while scientists sometimes tend to bias research with their backgrounds and paradigms. We think that all these issues can be addressed opening the process of knowledge building to the questions and needs of stakeholders and laypeople. The MaDCrow project proposed and tested several paths to attain these goals.

Volume 20Issue 062021Special Issue: Third International ECSA Conference, Trieste 2020 (Ecsa Conference 2020)

Oct 11, 2021 Article

Onto new horizons: insights from the WeObserve project to strengthen the awareness, acceptability and sustainability of Citizen Observatories in Europe

by Gerid Hager , Margaret Gold , Uta Wehn , Raquel Ajates , Linda See , Mel Woods , Chrysovalantis Tsiakos , Joan Masó , Dilek Fraisl , Inian Moorthy , Dahlia Domian , Steffen Fritz

WeObserve delivered the first European-wide Citizen Observatory (CO) knowledge platform to share best practices, to address challenges and to inform practitioners, policy makers and funders of COs. We present key insights from WeObserve activities into leveraging challenges to create interlinked solutions, connecting with international frameworks and groups, advancing the field through communities of practice and practitioner networks, and fostering an enabling environment for COs. We also discuss how the new Horizon Europe funding programme can help to further advance the CO concept, and vice versa, how COs can provide a suitable mechanism to support the ambitions of Horizon Europe.

Volume 20Issue 062021Special Issue: Third International ECSA Conference, Trieste 2020 (Ecsa Conference 2020)

Oct 11, 2021 Article

Investigating the process of ethical approval in citizen science research: the case of Public Health

by Antonella Ficorilli , Giovanni Maccani , Mara Balestrini , Annibale Biggeri , Bruna De Marchi , Frederique E. M. Froeling , Florence Gignac , Regina Grazuleviciene , Gerard Hoek , Tjaša Kanduč , David Kocman , Valeria Righi , Xavier Basagana

Undertaking citizen science research in Public Health involving human subjects poses significant challenges concerning the traditional process of ethical approval. It requires an extension of the ethics of protection of research subjects in order to include the empowerment of citizens as citizen scientists. This paper investigates these challenges and illustrates the ethical framework and the strategies developed within the CitieS-Health project. It also proposes first recommendations generated from the experiences of five citizen science pilot studies in environmental epidemiology within this project.

Volume 20Issue 062021Special Issue: Third International ECSA Conference, Trieste 2020 (Ecsa Conference 2020)

Oct 11, 2021 Article

Participant motivation to engage in a citizen science campaign: the case of the TESS network

by Irene Celino , Gloria Re Calegari , Mario Scrocca , Jaime Zamorano , Esteban Gonzalez Guardia

Citizen science involves laymen in some steps of a scientific experiment: citizens are volunteers devoting their free time to citizen science projects. Therefore it is important to investigate the factors influencing their motivation and engagement. In this paper, we present our study to investigate the motivation factors of the TESS photometer network participants, an initiative to collect light pollution data. We present the results and insight of our investigation and the instrument we adopted, which can be useful for the broad citizen science community.

Volume 20Issue 062021Special Issue: Third International ECSA Conference, Trieste 2020 (Ecsa Conference 2020)

Search results