Introduction

The potential of Citizen Science is high on the agenda in the discussion on the future of academic research. The European Commission’s Communication “A new ERA for Research and Innovation”, published in September 2020, states that “[...] the engagement of citizens, local communities and civil society will [help] achieve greater social impact and increased trust in science.” Citizens can contribute in diverse ways, ranging from data collection over data analysis to co-designing projects, and thereby bring academic research and its outcomes closer to society.

However, Citizen Science also accentuates ethical and legal questions about ownership of the research process and outcomes, and poses challenges in terms of safeguarding research quality. Addressing these challenges and using the opportunities of Citizen Science will require universities to take the lead and consider the place of Citizen Science within their institutional strategies, as well as the support they offer to research staff.

Engaging in inclusive and transparent science, Citizen Science and Open Science are becoming increasingly intertwined. Currently, Citizen Science is described by the European Commission as “both an aim and enabler of Open Science”.

This joint workshop will discuss themes around institutional support for Citizen Science and offers an opportunity to transfer and share knowledge. The aim is to exchange experiences, lessons learnt, and explore common challenges. To support Citizen Science, the online workshop will discuss tools, guidelines and good practices from Open Science experiences as well. Participating universities will have the opportunity to share expertise, coordinate efforts and exchange advice on services, tools and legal and ethical issues.

The workshop will contribute to the following concrete outcomes:

• Support universities in their development of institutional strategies on Citizen Science in the transition to Open Science.
• Foster a deeper understanding of how universities can use these opportunities and address the challenges of Citizen Science as part of their mission.
• Understand how Open Science practices and infrastructures, OpenAIRE in particular, can facilitate and support Citizen Science.

We received several interesting proposal for lightning talks from other projects and would like to share these with our participants:

• PartiCitaE is a citizen observatory of urban environment launched by Sorbonne University, in France. Its objective is to build a global (pluridisciplinaire) and shared knowledge of the urban environment. To do this PartiCitaE offers city dwellers the opportunity to get involved in all stages of knowledge building, from the formulation of questions to the analysis of data.

• UPC Citizen Science Portal is a new space where Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya shares all its citizen science initiatives. It contains many research actions open to public participation. You can also consult a selection of technical and public resources that can help you promote citizen science in your institution

• CitieS-Health is a SwafS project whose goal is to place the environmental concerns of citizens at the heart of the research agenda. It will seek solutions to issues posed by citizen participants in five pilot studies that will take place in Spain, Lithuania, Italy, Slovenia, and The Netherlands. It will also create models for citizen science projects that can be used by anyone, scientist or not, to develop his or her own research based on citizen participation. They are developing tools that help empower citizens on issues that directly affect them, as the Citizen Science Toolkit. It involves six partners from five European countries and is coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).

• How to approach teaching about Citizen Science principles and projects during online teaching? How to promote Citizen Science where this term is hardly recognized? The first academic e-learning course about Citizen Science in Polish is designed by Gdańsk University of Technology's Main Library and meets these expectations to promote idea of engaging people and citizens in science.

• The BIG Bell Test, which took place on November 30, 2016, included more than 100,000 people all around the world contributed to cutting-edge quantum physics experiments taking place in laboratories around the world, involving more than 1000 scientists in 15 research centres. The results of the experiment have been published in Nature.

• Thanks to the collaboration of citizen scientists, a color map of artificial light of Castelldefels (a town near Barcelona) is being created, that would help to better understand the impact of color on light pollution. If this first project is successful, it will be expanded globally to generate a map of the entire world. NightUp Castelldefels is currently in the data analysis process of the first local phase.

• Open Journal of Mathematics and Physics presents an alternative model for the publication of scientific articles in order to develop science at a much greater speed and much more inclusively. This self-publication model includes publishing short versions of scientific results (dubbed microarticles) without the need to add introduction and context. Its most important feature is that it can be updated even after its publication.This reduces the bureaucracy of publishing scientific results. In addition, the processes of reviewing and co-authoring are open to any citizen scientist.

Practical information

TARGET AUDIENCE

Vice-rectors, academics and researchers, mid-level administration, supporting staff, research staff, citizen scietists, research decision-makers

Recordings

Recordings of day 1 are avaialble here:

Recordings of day 2 are avaialble here

Registration

You can register for the workhsop here: Registration Form

If you have any questions, please, send email to info [at] openaccess.be