Citizen science in the social sciences and humanities: the power of interdisciplinarity

Tauginienė, Loreta; Butkevičienė, Eglė; Vohland, Katrin; Heinisch, Barbara; Δασκολιά, Μαρία; Suškevičs, Monika; Portela, Manuel; Balázs, Bálint; Prūse, Baiba

doi:10.1057/s41599-020-0471-y

Cited by 118 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 87 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…As well as being its own distinct field of enquiry (Jordan et al, 2015 ), it can also reach beyond individual scientific disciplines to attract wider public participation in scientific research, leading to the overall advancement of scientific knowledge (Bonney et al, 2009b ). Citizen science has ample capacity for transdisciplinarity and for integrating natural, physical, and health sciences with the humanities and social sciences (Pykett et al, 2020 ; Tauginiene et al, 2020 ). It is an excellent method of harnessing non-traditional data sources to tackle societal challenges and contribute to certain Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (Fritz et al, 2019 ; Fraisl et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen Science, Education, and Learning: Challenges and Opportunities

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Citizen science is a growing field of research and practice, generating new knowledge and understanding through the collaboration of citizens in scientific research. As the field expands, it is becoming increasingly important to consider its potential to foster education and learning opportunities. Although progress has been made to support learning in citizen science projects, as well as to facilitate citizen science in formal and informal learning environments, challenges still arise. This paper identifies a number of dilemmas facing the field—from competing scientific goals and learning outcomes, differing underlying ontologies and epistemologies, diverging communication strategies, to clashing values around advocacy and activism. Although such challenges can become barriers to the successful integration of citizen science into mainstream education systems, they also serve as signposts for possible synergies and opportunities. One of the key emerging recommendations is to align educational learning outcomes with citizen science project goals at the planning stage of the project using co-creation approaches to ensure issues of accessibility and inclusivity are paramount throughout the design and implementation of every project. Only then can citizen science realise its true potential to empower citizens to take ownership of their own science education and learning.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen Science, Education, and Learning: Challenges and Opportunities

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It appears that such methods have not yet been applied to particular citizen energy communities or renewable energy communities. Therefore, like the calls for further inter-and transdisciplinary citizen science to advance sustainability programs [50,51], we call for energy research to be better aligned with citizen science. Such alliances could allow citizens, energy managers and policymakers to better integrate different types of knowledge and forms of participation in their collective push to empower energy communities.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen Science and Citizen Energy Communities: A Systematic Review and Potential Alliances for SDGs

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Citizen science and citizen energy communities are pluralistic terms that refer to a constellation of methods, projects, and outreach activities; however, citizen science and citizen energy communities are rarely, if ever, explicitly aligned. Our searches for “citizen science” and “energy” produced limited results and “citizen science” and “energy communities” produced zero. Therefore, to outline a future direction of citizen science, its potential alliances with energy communities, and their collaborative contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals, we performed a systematic literature review and analysis of “public participation” and “energy communities” using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRIMSA) guidelines. The results show four pathways through which current public participation in energy communities might be more explicitly aligned with citizen science projects: benefits and values, energy practices, intermediaries, and energy citizenship. Each of these pathways could engage citizen scientists in qualitative and quantitative research and increase scientific literacy about energy systems. Our call for citizen science to supplement current forms of participation builds from the “ecologies of participation” framework, itself an extension of co-productionist theories of science and technology studies. We conclude with a discussion of affordances and barriers to the alliances between citizen science and energy communities and their potential contributions to SDGs 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, 13: Climate Action, and 17: Partnerships for the Goals.

show abstract

“…This constitutes one of the main reasons for our cautious approach to citizen social science. Furthermore, the term citizen science is mostly used in the Global North, whereas many other invisible participatory social science practices exist there and elsewhere that do not use such a term (Tauginienė et al 2020). For example, the Global Informality Project is an online resource for 'ways of getting things done'.…”

Section: What Are the Key Issues For Citizen Social Science?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen Social Science: New and Established Approaches to Participation in Social Research

Albert

Balázs²,

Butkevičienė

et al. 2021

The Science of Citizen Science

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Citizen science in the social sciences and humanities: the power of interdisciplinarity

Cited by 118 publications

References 87 publications

Citizen Science, Education, and Learning: Challenges and Opportunities

Citizen Science, Education, and Learning: Challenges and Opportunities

Citizen Science and Citizen Energy Communities: A Systematic Review and Potential Alliances for SDGs

Citizen Social Science: New and Established Approaches to Participation in Social Research

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About