How Does Policy Conceptualise Citizen Science? A Qualitative Content Analysis of International Policy Documents

Hecker, Susanne; Wicke, Nina; Haklay, Muki; Bonn, Aletta

doi:10.5334/cstp.230

Cited by 69 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Citizen science, as a partnership between members of the public and academic scientists, can address scientific questions and issues of common concern [20] that foster and support innovation in science, as well as in policy and society [21]. We acknowledge that citizen science is defined, interpreted and executed in multiple ways for different purposes [8,[22][23][24][25]. In this paper, we focus on citizen science for the purpose of marine conservation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen science and marine conservation: a global review

Kelly

Fleming

Pecl

et al. 2020

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Climate change, overfishing, marine pollution and other anthropogenic drivers threaten our global oceans. More effective efforts are urgently required to improve the capacity of marine conservation action worldwide, as highlighted by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030. Marine citizen science presents a promising avenue to enhance engagement in marine conservation around the globe. Building on an expanding field of citizen science research and practice, we present a global overview of the current extent and potential of marine citizen science and its contribution to marine conservation. Employing an online global survey, we explore the geographical distribution, type and format of 74 marine citizen science projects. By assessing how the projects adhere to the Ten Principles of Citizen Science (as defined by the European Citizen Science Association), we investigate project development, identify challenges and outline future opportunities to contribute to marine science and conservation. Synthesizing the survey results and drawing on evidence from case studies of diverse projects, we assess whether and how citizen science can lead to new scientific knowledge and enhanced environmental stewardship. Overall, we explore how marine citizen science can inform current understanding of marine biodiversity and support the development and implementation of marine conservation initiatives worldwide. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Integrative research perspectives on marine conservation’.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen science and marine conservation: a global review

Kelly

Fleming

Pecl

et al. 2020

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…To avoid that citizen science be seen as a panacea to longstanding agricultural, economic, or social problems suffered by community-level stakeholders, or as an alternative to established programmes that build resilience to natural hazards, it is important to consider it a useful new modality that complements the existing toolkit in such efforts (Cieslik et al, 2018;McCampbell et al, 2018;Paul et al, 2018). In developing countries, and especially in a sustainable development context, citizen science initiatives are often community-based andled; policy acceptance at higher levels remains poor due to a series of complex and interconnected challenges, such as lack of institutional capacity, mistrust of the motives of project leaders, and potential overlap with existing initiatives (Irwin, 2018;Hecker et al, 2019). Elsewhere, the Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) research group at University College London (UCL) explicitly interrogates the barriers and opportunities toward operationalizing and scaling up citizen science in developing countries (e.g., Stevens et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introduction Citizen Science Research Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying Citizen Science for Sustainable Development: Rainfall Monitoring in Western Nepal

et al. 2020

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We introduce a case-study agnostic framework for the application of citizen science in a sustainable development context. This framework is tested against an activity in two secondary schools in western Nepal. While the purpose of this activity is to generate locally relevant knowledge on the physical processes behind natural hazards, we concentrate here on its implementation, i.e., to obtain a better understanding of the dynamic of the activity and to learn how it should be implemented. We determined the social capital of secondary schools as a gateway to the local community: they provide a unique setting to bring different stakeholders together. We find that co-designing a teaching programme is an effective means of both complementing local curricula and ensuring continued buy-in of local stakeholders (i.e., teachers). Student engagement depends on the local relevance of teaching materials, with more holistic or global concepts, such as climate change of lesser importance. Our activity focused on rainfall, including student-led data collection. These rainfall data provide a very good fit to co-located rain gauge data, with an average difference on weekly readings of 11.8%, reducing to 8.3% when averaged over all student readings. The autonomous development of student-organized science clubs suggested that our original framework underestimated students' capacity to apply knowledge elsewhere creatively. These clubs may be used to obtain participant feedback to improve and tailor future activities. Quantitative assessment of long-term sustainability remains challenging, due in part to high levels of student turnover. We suggest that integrating scientists wherever possible within a school or local community has a direct and positive result on participant retention.

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“…There are already a wide range of disciplines and topics that are obtaining significant outcomes thanks to active public involvement in scientific research [33,34]. However, the more popular citizen science is, the more diverse and ambitious it has become, thanks to its interplay between research, society and policy making [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large-scale citizen science provides high-resolution nitrogen dioxide values and health impact while enhancing community knowledge and collective action

Perelló¹,

Cigarini²,

Vicens³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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We present outcomes from a large-scale air quality citizen science campaign (xAire, 725 measurements) to demonstrate its positive contribution in the interplay between advances in exposure assessment and developments in policy or collective action. A broad partnership with 1,650 people from communities around 18 primary schools across Barcelona provided the capacity to obtain unprecedented high-resolution NO2 levels and an updated asthma Health Impact Assessment. It is shown that NO2 levels vary considerably with at some cases very high levels. More than a 1,000 new cases of childhood asthma could be prevented each year by lowering NO2 levels. Representativity of site selection and the minimal number of samplers for land use regression modelling are considered. Enhancement of community knowledge and attitudes towards collective response were observed and identified as key drivers for successful large-scale monitoring campaigns. The results encourage strengthening collaboration with local communities when exploring environmental health issues.

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How Does Policy Conceptualise Citizen Science? A Qualitative Content Analysis of International Policy Documents

Cited by 69 publications

References 52 publications

Citizen science and marine conservation: a global review

Citizen science and marine conservation: a global review

Applying Citizen Science for Sustainable Development: Rainfall Monitoring in Western Nepal

Large-scale citizen science provides high-resolution nitrogen dioxide values and health impact while enhancing community knowledge and collective action

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