Design Thinking as a Means of Citizen Science for Social Innovation

Abstract

Members of the public or community can play a significant role in the development of social innovations. When a social innovation is developed involving a scientific approach and the community, there is the confluence of two fields-citizen science and social innovation. Social innovations can be developed through the employment of design-thinking. In this paper, we advocate design thinking as an approach to marry the two fields for a desired outcome of improved community life in ageing housing estates in Tokyo. The two fields, citizen science and social innovation, are described in brief before the design thinking method is introduced and its utility in engaging citizens for social innovation is explored. The paper provides two case illustrations and the lessons drawn from them. We conclude with pointers for others who desire to employ this approach. When the resultant innovation and design-thinking approach are adopted by the community for future projects, there could be a change in society and possible forward movement for self-help and change.

Citizen science and social innovation as citizen empowerment tools to address urban health challenges: The case of the urban health citizen laboratory in Barcelona, Spain

“…The power of combining both approaches lie in the ability to leverage scientific rigor to explore issues within our environment, while providing with the opportunity to translate that research into action, making a positive impact on the community [47] and generating new social structures and relationships that increase its capacity to act [53]. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are currently little synergy experiences between CS and SI to address urban health problems [51][52][53], and none of these experiences include a co-created CS approach.…”

Knowledge Production with Design Thinking for Citizen Science

“…Taking advantage of design thinking in citizen science (CS) has gained interest recently, for example in the context of two small-scale projects with citizen scientists in Japanese suburbs prototyping social innovation [1]. Furthermore, some authors introduced the term "citizen design science" aiming to integrate citizens' ideas into the urban planning process [2] while the project "Digitale Dörfer" used design thinking to foster digitalization in the rural context [3].…”

Beyond Open Access: Conceptualizing Open Science for Knowledge Co-creation

“…Research points to a greater awareness of the scientific process as a result of the non-academic stakeholder engagement (Goi and Tan, 2021). The stakeholders also enjoy the scientific results through an increase in knowledge and practical improvements in their life (Goi and Tan, 2021).…”

“…Research points to a greater awareness of the scientific process as a result of the non-academic stakeholder engagement (Goi and Tan, 2021). The stakeholders also enjoy the scientific results through an increase in knowledge and practical improvements in their life (Goi and Tan, 2021). New forms of engagement are based on the principle of co-creation where "value" is created as the nexus of interaction (Osborne et al, 2018).…”