Filter by keyword: Citizen science

WeCount was designed to empower citizens in five case studies across Europe to take a leading role in the production of data, evidence, knowledge and solutions for local sustainable mobility. This practice insight aims to explore the suitability and value of citizen science to address sustainable mobility and sustainable transport issues. The evaluation showed that WeCount was able to reach and sustain engagement with broad demographics in society and highlighted the importance of co-design in making citizen science enjoyable and empowering. Statistical significance was found: the more a citizen enjoyed their time, the more likely they were to state they would continue working with the data beyond the project. Moreover, WeCount citizens reported that participation led to action and/or changes in behaviours. While the numbers are modest (24 individual actions by around 10% of participants), this is an important, measurable outcome.

This study assessed educational goals and learning outcomes in 57 citizen science projects in South Africa. Emphasising data collection as the primary objective, the findings revealed a secondary focus on environmental awareness, protection, and management, as well as education and research advancement. Notably, educational goals were often not prioritised, and formal measures for assessing learning outcomes were infrequently employed by project leaders. The study underscores the necessity for systematic approaches to evaluate the educational impacts of citizen science projects in South Africa.

This study aimed to analyze the usage of scientific concepts and technical terms related to COVID-19 vaccination in Portuguese online news sources and examine citizens' comprehension of these terms. A retrospective descriptive study was conducted, examining Portuguese news articles about COVID-19 vaccination from November 2021 to January 2022. Scientific terms were extracted from 190 articles, and seven citizens provided identification and brief definitions of familiar terms. Approximately 68% of the news articles involved collaboration with researchers or health professionals. A total of 144 scientific terms were identified in 77% of the articles, with more than half (57.54%) of these terms being unknown or inadequately defined by the citizens consulted.

The present contribution deals with a practical insight into the design, implementation, and evaluation of different participation formats (on-site, direct mail, online) to participate in a living lab. A total sample of 290 citizens was recruited to promote sustainable mobility (i.e. walking and cycling) and improve urban space quality. Results further address the influence of participation methodology on participants' evaluation, willingness to participate and reported satisfaction with the participation used as well as predictors for participation satisfaction. Although the sample was not representative, the results suggest that citizen participation contributed to a more sustainable mobility awareness and a higher acceptance of the urban transformation.

In this article, the authors aim to reflect on the relationship between collaborative creation and creativity ('co-creativity') within Living Lab (LL) research and innovation in the domain of agri-food systems.While the value of LL is often perceived to be the collaboration among its participants, there is a need to capture and measure the process of co-creation.Co-creativity is indicated by the literature to be a necessary research and collaborative component of social change, as well as for promoting a transformative sustainability agenda.This article uses empirical and primary data collected in the context of the DIVINFOOD project to show the extent to which researchers actively promote, manage and respond to the effects of collaborative creativity within their research. Collaborative creativity is an indispensable component of the co-creation process because it supports collaborative learning. The authors conclude that measuring co-creativity could be an interesting indicator to monitor the development of LLs over time.

The study presents findings on motivations, barriers and recommendations that enhance youth engagement in citizen science particularly, those with no prior citizen science experience. We conducted focus groups targeting young people with and without citizen science experience. Qualitative findings identify a range of motivations including career development, new interests and knowledge, altruistic values, social interactions, inclusivity and connections to new places and nature. Several barriers were identified including logistical constraints, lack of knowledge and interest, programmatic and organisational issues. We discuss the implications of our findings to broaden the diversity of citizen scientists toward a younger demographic.

Citizen Science is believed to contribute significantly to the democratisation of science, engaging non-scientists in scientific research. Participatory approaches to science communication share the same interest through public participation and public engagement. In the attempt to connect these two debates both theoretically and empirically, we provide an analysis of the communication tools and strategies used by 157 Citizen Science projects across the EU, UK, and Switzerland. Our analysis reports that the CS projects surveyed tend to interpret communication as a disseminating activity, rather than as a tool to promote appropriate communication-based encounters with both project participants and other potential target audiences.

Citizen science projects are valued for their impact on participants' knowledge, attitude and behavior towards science. In this paper, we explore how participation in biodiversity citizen science projects is correlated to different dimensions of trust in science. We conduct a quantitative study through an online survey of 1,199 individuals, 586 of them being part of a biodiversity citizen science program in France. Our results suggest that participation-related trust is more exhaustive — it covers more dimensions of the scientific endeavor — than education-related trust. This exploratory study calls for more empirical research on the links between citizen science and the different dimensions of public trust in science.

It is often assumed that citizen science is inherently participatory in nature. However, citizen science projects exist along a continuum from data contribution to full co-creation. We invited 19 biologists to explore their conceptions of citizen science. Almost all participants defined citizen science as involving non-scientists in data collection. This definition acted as a barrier for scientists who did not see how citizen science could suit their research objectives. While interviewees perceived many societal and experiential benefits of contributory citizen science, deliberate design is needed to realise the full potential of citizen science for public engagement.

Anniversaries provide great opportunities to celebrate achievements, to look into the future, and to do some self-reflection. I have the honour of doing so in a specific field of science communication that I’m familiar with: the field of citizen science communication, especially with a European focus. I hope this commentary prompts others who are experts in their regions of the world to also reflect on the past and the future for this growing field.