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Citizen science has not yet fulfilled its significant potential for research being carried out at European universities. Egle Butkeviciene asks why, and discusses some novel strategies to forge a transformational path forward.
As contemporary universities implement their third mission of transferring academic knowledge to make an impact on society and solve societal challenges, they aim to foster cooperation with the public. Public engagement takes many different forms, among them citizen science - an emerging research methodology where members of the general public collaborate with professional scientists and participate in research projects, including data collection, analysis, and even the publication of research results.
However, despite growing interest in the field and its potential to foster public engagement in science, citizen science is still far from widespread in academia, with many universities yet to fully embrace it as a viable research model. Several groups of barriers such as lack of awareness, lack of dedicated resources, and lack of visibility and interest among wider society impede the use of citizen science at European universities.
One major challenge is the lack of awareness of how to use citizen science in research and some prevalent ‘myths’. For many researchers and university top management, citizen science is still ‘terra incognita’, and that limits the integration of participatory research into formally existing research frameworks. Many universities are still oriented towards traditional, expert-driven research, and that makes it difficult to re-orient research efforts in a participatory and collaborative manner. Additionally, many academics remain sceptical about the quality of data that is collected by lay people, criticizing its validity and reliability. Also, researchers are concerned about ethics, intellectual property and management of data generated through public contributions, adding additional layers of challenges onto complex situations.
Another challenge is sustainable funding and resources for citizen science projects. Project based funding is fragmented and cannot sustain citizen science over time at the university. A lack of internal resources and unawareness of relevant networks also makes difficult to support citizen science initiatives. This creates uncertainties for researchers who may wish to establish long-term citizen science projects.
Additionally, in many countries citizen science is still unknown across wider society, especially in Eastern and Central European countries. There is also a shortage of training and educational programmes to equip students and citizens with the necessary skills for meaningful participation. This results in low motivation among the public to join existing citizen science initiatives, and in a way creates a loop of “no interest in citizen science from the public = no motivation for researchers to offer citizen science opportunities”.
To overcome these challenges, universities across Europe and beyond have created some strategies. These good examples and successful practices from other universities may provide encouraging pathways for other universities to integrate citizen science in research strategies and frameworks. However, the transformational pathway of the higher education institution towards the wider use of citizen science should include the entire academic community, at research, education, infrastructure and policy levels. That was the framework adopted to foster transformational pathways towards citizen science by the Horizon 2020 TIME4CS, Horizon Europe CATALISI and other projects. The emphasis on four dimensions – research, education, infrastructure and policy – creates an overarching framework to achieve institutional changes.
Awareness raising among academic communities, including doctoral candidates, researchers and top management, is an important part of the solution. There are many good practices on how to strengthen citizen science within institutions, as well as proven ways to disseminate the idea of citizen and participatory science’s value. These include:
Even if it is currently not properly recognized, citizen science has a big future at our universities. More and more universities have joined the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and signed the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, committing to reforming the methods by which research, researchers and research organisations are evaluated and acknowledging the value of qualitative assessment. Citizen science is perfectly aligned with this perspective.
