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Many citizen science projects are in the thematic area of species observation and natural environment monitoring but, in recent years, projects in other areas and disciplines have increasingly been using citizen science approaches. It is assumed that citizen science could potentially contribute to an increase in environmental awareness and to advancing knowledge about environmental change and sustainability issues. In this article, we present a review of 127 citizen science projects listed on the German platform, “Bürger schaffen Wissen”, with the aim of analysing whether the main focus of most projects is on the scientific results or on educational aspects and how citizen science projects are connected to the SDGs. The results show that many citizen science projects overlap with SDG 4 Quality Education. Of these projects, a larger proportion entail higher levels of involvement than those projects with a stronger focus on the scientific results, in which the participation of the citizen scientists is mainly standardised and at low levels. An even greater number of projects in the sample are linked to SDG 15 Life on Land and, thereby, are in line with the traditional focus of citizen science. Additionally, the analysis reveals that forms of education used in citizen science projects are much more diverse than those included in SDG 4.

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Conventional welfare production is unsustainable. A societal emphasis on (green) economic growth may therefore be superseded by an extended concept of well-being. Taking a transformative approach, science may take part in catalysing this challenging transformation of both the understanding and the level of well-being. Instead of economic growth at the expense of sustainability, we aim to cooperatively refocus on integrating economic, social and ecological perspectives into a more holistic, sustainable approach to individual and municipal well-being in Wuppertal (Germany). Therefore, the research team investigates and develops concepts of local sustainable well-being production, e.g., by employing a new indicator system and the real-world laboratory approach. What are the conditions and constraints of transforming well-being in Wuppertal and most particularly of the role of scientists in this endeavour? Answering this research question with a comparative case study approach, we have analysed our resources, processes, contexts and normativity. The results show that the role of 'transformative scientists' in Wuppertal faces constraints of timing and funding, as well as challenges from the different demands of science and practice. Hampered co-design interacts with role conflicts. Open-minded stakeholders are crucial for local well-being transformation, as is the awareness that urban residential districts have bottomed out. However, the normative sustainability claims of the transformative research project are not fully shared by all of its stakeholders, which is both necessary and challenging for transformative research.

ZusammenfassungIn diesem Kapitel werden zwei Fälle transformativer Forschung im Hinblick auf die aus dem diskursiven Institutionalismus herausgearbeiteten Kriterien bezüglich der Arten von Ideen, Akteur*innen, Strategien und Rahmenbedingungen untersucht. Die Analyse kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Wissenschaftler*innen als institutionelle Unternehmer*innen in lokalen Netzwerken agierten und innerhalb des Untersuchungszeitraumes von drei Jahren bereits neue Diskurse anstoßen konnten. Besonders wenn sie an vorhandene Krisenwahrnehmungen anknüpfen konnten und über gute Netzwerke verfügten, konnten sie erste Veränderungen bewirken. Die neuen Paradigmen, die Grundlage einer umweltverträglichen Gesellschaft ohne den Anspruch dauerhaften Wirtschaftswachstums sein sollten, wurden jedoch kaum verbreitet und eine Transformation konnte bislang keiner der beiden Fälle anstoßen.