Citizen science evolved through multiple disciplinary manifestations into a new field of study and a participatory method of enquiry. While most citizen science projects take place within problem-focused natural sciences, social sciences and humanities help understanding the human dimension and open a broad methodological spectrum for enriching scientific research with new approaches and for boosting public participation. In this paper, we use a meta-synthesis approach to explore how citizen science is practised in the so far less addressed social sciences and humanities by focusing on the role of the citizens, the goals and approaches of the projects, the tasks in which citizens are engaged and their gains across projects of diverse disciplinary background. Our findings indicate that social sciences are gaining more acknowledgment within interdisciplinary citizen science projects by addressing ‘wicked’ problems of human behaviour and agency, while humanities are in quest of a better-defined locus in citizen science. We conclude that social sciences and humanities still face considerable barriers to infiltrate citizen science; the payoffs are substantial and already rewarding for several subfields in social sciences and humanities.

This chapter explores the ways in which the roles of citizens and researchers play out in the social sciences. This is expressed by numerous overlapping and related terms, such as co-production and participatory action research, to name but two, and by the different social topics that citizen social science draws attention to. The key question this chapter seeks to explore is what does naming citizen social science as such bring to the fields of citizen science and the social sciences? The chapter explores the different epistemic foundations of citizen social science and outlines the development and provenance of citizen social science in its broadest sense, reflecting on how it is currently practised. It draws on different examples from the experiences and work of the authors and notes the boundaries and overlaps with citizen science. The chapter also highlights some of the key issues that citizen social science gives rise to, emphasising that while citizen social science is a relatively new term, its underlying approaches and epistemic foundations are at least partially established in the social sciences.

In this chapter, we explore the landscape of citizen science across Europe, how networks have developed, and how the science of citizen science has evolved. In addition to carrying out a literature review, we analysed publicly available data from the European Commission’s Community Research and Development Information Service (Cordis). We also extracted information from a pilot survey on citizen science strategies throughout Europe, carried out within the framework of the COST Action CA15212. Our findings are complemented by case studies from COST member countries. Finally, we offer some insights, considerations, and recommendations on developing networks, utilising the COST Action and EU-Citizen.Science as capacity building platforms.

This article discusses increasingly heterogeneous nature of social policy in contemporary societies, focusing on the analysis of public attitudes towards the role of state, individual and family in the social provision. Existing literature does not present one answer what institutions should have a central role in creating social welfare as liberal and Marxist theories have different answers about the role of the state in social provision. Lithuania was selected as a case for analysis because it is interesting as a post-soviet country. In this context, the question is whether people still have big expectations for the state's role in social provision (as in soviet times) or are prepared to take responsibility themselves. The paper is based on the results of two interrelated projects: the research project 'International Social Survey Programme: Monitoring of Lithuanian social problems (ISSP-LT)' 1 and the research project 'Monitoring of social problems: implementation of International Social Survey Program (ISSP)' 2. The paper presents empirical results of two representative public opinion surveys. The results of empirical studies reveal that people still have big expectations for the role of the state in social provision and welfare. The state should be mainly 1 The paper is partly based upon results of research project 'International Social Survey Programme: Monitoring of Lithuanian social problems (ISSP-LT)', funded by a grant from the Research Council of Lithuania (No. SIN-7/2012). The project is being implemented in the period of 2012-2013. The goal of this project is to continue the long-term monitoring of social problems by implementing the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in Lithuania. The project analyses the attitudes and experiences of Lithuanian population in the following thematic areas: 'Social Policy', 'Family, Work and Gender Roles', 'National Identity' and 'Virtual Social Networks'. 2 The paper is partly based upon empirical results of research project 'Monitoring of social problems: implementation of International Social Survey Program (ISSP)', funded by a grant from the Research Council of Lithuania (No. SIN-15/2010). The project has been implemented in the period of 2010-2011. The goal of the project was to establish a system for monitoring social problems in Lithuania and to implement international comparative analysis of social problems using the methodology of the International Social Survey Programme. responsible for the provision in situations of old age, unemployment, illness, and durable physical or mental handicap.

Social innovation brings social change and aims to address societal challenges and social needs in a novel way. We therefore consider citizen science as both (1) social innovation in research and (2) an innovative way to develop and foster social innovation. In this chapter, we discuss how citizen science contributes to society’s goals and the development of social innovation, and we conceptualise citizen science as a process that creates social innovation. We argue that both citizen science and social innovation can be analysed using three dimensions – content, process, and empowerment (impact). Using these three dimensions as a framework for our analysis, we present five citizen science cases to demonstrate how citizen science leads to social innovation. As a result of our case study analysis, we identify the major challenges for citizen science in stimulating social innovation.