Model of R&I Socialisation through Citizen Science
Creators: name: d'Andrea, Luciano
name: colonnello, claudia
name: Feudo, Fabio
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: This report aims to present a conceptual and operational model for the socialisation of scientific research and innovation (R&I) through Citizen Science (CS), based on the lessons learned from the Step Change experience (in particular, mutual learning and monitoring and evaluation) and the contribution of the teams responsible for implementing the Citizen Science Initiatives (CSIs).

The report was produced through a process involving several stages: an analysis of the literature and of the elements that emerged during the mutual learning and monitoring meetings; the definition of a general theoretical approach; the sharing and discussion of this approach with the partners; a further discussion of the contents of the report in the context of an online seminar with the partners; the collection of empirical material in the context of the final evaluation workshops carried out with the CIS teams; the final drafting of the report.

The strategic core of the model is to achieve the mainstreaming of CS within European R&I organisations and systems, following the same approach successfully adopted by the European Commission (EC) for gender mainstreaming in the European Research Area or, more recently, with the Open Access approach.

The first chapter describes the context in which the CS mainstreaming proposal takes shape.

Since the 1990s, and even before, there have been profound changes in the way R&I is conducted. In contrast to the past, R&I has become an increasingly collaborative, interdisciplinary and multi-actor process, more focused on the production of knowledge that has or can have economic and social value. This shift towards an open social design of R&I is still uneven and uncertain. It is therefore necessary to develop policies aimed at the socialisation of R&I, i.e., the gradual adoption of Open R&I by all research institutions, scientists and innovators, as well as by key societal actors.

CS mainstreaming could be one of the main tools for socialising R&I. It is necessary for several reasons: to manage the non-neutrality of R&I; to access the non-scientific knowledge needed to address the increasingly complex issues that R&I is called upon to address; to better manage the increasingly intense and multifaceted relations between R&I and society; to adapt R&I to a society in which people no longer passively accept to be studied or to be recipients of new technologies.

The second chapter defines the components of the model.

CS mainstreaming is conceived as a strategy to achieve the involvement of social actors in the research process at all possible levels. This does not mean that citizens and stakeholders should always be involved in R&I, but that a participatory perspective should be integrated into every R&I policy, programme and project, to understand when and how participation is needed and when it is not.

CS mainstreaming is conceptually and operationally organised in three dimensions: the knowledge dimension (concerning the contribution of citizens and stakeholders to knowledge production), the participatory dimension (concerning the involvement and 7

 

interaction of citizens and stakeholders in R&I activities) and the institutional dimension (concerning the changes that need to be introduced in R&I organisations and systems to allow for the integration of participatory mechanisms). Each dimension has three specific components.

Finally, in Chapter 3, some emerging issues for each dimension have been highlighted and explored in more detail from a CS mainstreaming perspective.