Capacity building in citizen science

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

“…The CS community actively advocates for the development of CS through tailored communication towards policymakers and their networks in the form of policy briefs, for example, the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) advocated for the inclusion of CS as part of EU Policy Delivery (ECSA 2016) and endorsed the German Green Paper on Citizen Science (ECSA 2015), and the European project Doing It together Science (DITOS) advocated for synergies between CS and Open Science (DITOS 2017). The development of CS also is supported by global associations, national organisations, and capacity programmes (Göbel et al 2017;Richter et al 2018), and is promoted by conferences of at least three CS associations (i.e., the US Citizen Science Association, the European Citizen Science Association, and the Australian Citizen Science Association) as hubs for the development of the field (e.g., Hecker et al 2018a). At the same time, critical voices that question CS in its current conceptualization have emerged .…”

Co-Creating and Implementing Quality Criteria for Citizen Science

“…The Österreich forscht platform was established in 2014 by two of the authors (FH and DD) with the objectives of (1) connecting citizen science actors in Austria, (2) providing the broadest possible overview of citizen science projects, and (3) further developing citizen science as a methodology (Dörler and Heigl 2018;Richter et al 2018). The platform originated from an independent consortium of project leaders, showcasing their activities on a shared website, and it formally turned into the Citizen Science Network Austria (CSNA) in 2017 (Citizen Science Network Austria, 2019).…”

“…In this paper, we reflect on the development and implementation of quality criteria in the context of the Austrian citizen science platform Österreich forscht, a scientist-led platform that details a range of citizen science projects, facilitates knowledge exchange between citizen science actors, and promotes awareness of citizen science (Dörler and Heigl 2019;Pettibone et al 2017;Richter et al 2018). We present the factors that drove a one-year-long open co-creation process, resulting in a set of quality criteria that represent the requirements to which projects need to conform to be listed on Österreich forscht.…”

Citizen Science Platforms

“…Due to the networks' appeal to a broad target audience, the associated platforms often offer very elaborate information on citizen science, suitable for many different interests and backgrounds, forming national citizen science information hubs. The citizen science networks usually combine different scientific disciplines and aim to (1) promote the recognition of citizen science in science and society; (2) create social impact through transdisciplinary work, bringing together science and society; (3) establish new citizen science initiatives; (4) establish a platform for knowledge exchange and mutual learning; and (5) improve the quality of citizen science initiatives and enable research on citizen science (Pettibone et al 2017;Richter et al 2018;Dörler and Heigl 2019).…”