Citizen Science

# Citizen Science

*Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy*

Edited by Susanne Hecker, Muki Haklay, Anne Bowser, Zen Makuch, Johannes Vogel & Aletta Bonn

First published in 2018 by UCL Press University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT

Available to download free: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press

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Hecker, S., Haklay, M., Bowser, A., Makuch, Z., Vogel, J. & Bonn, A. 2018. *Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy.* London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787352339

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ISBN: 978-1-78735-235-3 (Hbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-234-6 (Pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-233-9 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-78735-236-0 (epub) ISBN: 978-1-78735-237-7 (mobi) ISBN: 978-1-78735-238-4 (html) DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787352339

# Foreword

The world is facing unprecedented social, environmental and economic challenges that will require policymakers, business, scientists and citizens to open up to one another and find new ways of collaborating. In our digital age, we are reinventing the way knowledge is produced, distributed and acted upon. And an approach based on citizen science will be part of this new relationship between science and society.

The current increase in citizen science shows clearly the societal desire to participate more actively in knowledge production, knowledge assessment and decision-making. At the same time, scientists, research organisations and research funders are discovering the benefits of opening research to society by actively collaborating with citizens. There has been a significant rise in public participation in research in recent times, with citizens becoming engaged in the process of knowledge co-creation. This is not just a passive role, but actively setting the agenda, crowdsourcing via web platforms, and collecting and analysing a broad spectrum of scientific data. To invent new innovative ways to tackle societal challenges we need to involve those most affected – the citizens themselves.

I very much welcome these developments. The Commission is supporting them through its Open Science Agenda as well as through actions funded under the EU's Horizon 2020 framework programme. The recent 'Lab – Fab – App' report on maximising the impact of EU research and innovation recommended greater mobilisation and involvement of citizens in future EU research and innovation programmes through stimulating co-design and co-creation.

This book brings together some of the key insights into citizen science, highlighting what is already happening and exploring its potential to create new forms of knowledge generation, transfer and use and to foster the civic engagement of science. As a part of the open science agenda, citizen science contributes to the idea of a more innovative, inclusive, future-oriented and democratic Europe.

#### *Carlos Moedas*

European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation

# Preface

Citizen science is becoming a global movement. Although there is a long history of co-operation between members of the general public and professionals, only now are its social benefits and transformative power the subjects of political and scientific debates. Citizen science is growing as a network of different players and is undergoing a self-identification process, making itself known in discussions about quality criteria, the role of the humanities, and its relationship to the concepts of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and open science.

Our normative idea of citizen science encompasses democratic governance in Europe and the rest of the world relying on the informed decisions of its citizens and the shared understanding of science as one if its foundation – a contribution especially valuable given struggles to identify shared meanings for Europe and global citizenship.

One part of the evolution of citizen science, like other movements, involves the desire to gain legitimacy, and one way to achieve this is through institutionalisation. The European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), Citizen Science Association (CSA) based in United States, and Australian Citizen Science Association (ACSA), as well as national networks in countries including Germany, New Zealand, China and Austria, are transitioning from lose networks to legal entities. The self-reflection taking place within the citizen science community is also increasing, as shown by the increasing amount of research conducted on citizen science and its impacts. Citizen science is not only institutionalising, but professionalising. Practitioners exchange experiences, tips and tricks, but also consider societal and political impacts: What do the participants – citizens and scientists – learn? Do their attitudes and routines change? How does citizen science impact policy? Does citizen science impact the innovative potential of a society, and how can this be measured?

Another characteristic of a movement is the process of developing a self-identity and joint understanding – in this case, of citizen science. One example of this identity forming is demonstrated by the Ten Principles of Citizen Science developed by the ECSA principles group, chaired by Lucy Robinson (Robinson et al. in this volume), and translated into more than 20 different languages. As citizen science associations, we aim to promote sustainability through citizen science, build competence centres for citizen science and develop participatory methods for co-operation, empowerment and impact.

Our vision is for citizen science to advance its integrative power, to develop tools and find resources to approach and integrate marginalised groups, and for the concerns and findings of citizens to be taken seriously by different scientific communities and in the political arena.

*Katrin Vohland, Claudia Göbel, ECSA, Jennifer Shirk, CSA & Jessie Oliver, ACSA* European Citizen Science Association (ECSA https://ecsa.citizen-science.net/) Citizen Science Association based in United States (CSA http://citizenscience.org/) Australian Citizen Science Association (ACSA https://csna.gaiaresources.com.au/)

# Acknowledgements

The process of scoping, writing and compiling diverse perspectives for this volume has been a rewarding and inspiring journey for all involved. This volume brings together the diverse perspectives of 121 authors including researchers from the natural, social and computational sciences, educators in formal and informal contexts, policy experts and policymakers as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These authors span 16 countries and represent 82 organisations. We sincerely thank all authors for joining this stimulating journey of the production of this volume and for the many discussions throughout the process. We are also indebted to the many hundreds of volunteers as well as project managers and policy advisers who have engaged in the citizen science projects presented in this volume. The case studies, we believe, help to ground the more theoretical perspectives and offer concrete examples of research in action. We hope that this book will inspire continued dialogue on the intersections of citizen science and policy.

We also thank our reviewers, who lent their scientific expertise and practitioner experience to enhance all chapters in this book. We are grateful to Chris Penfold and to the excellent support staff at UCL Press for helpful advice and encouraging guidance. A very special thanks goes to Madeleine Hatfield as our editor for fantastic improvements to the flow of the text and to Olaf Herling for the professional graphic design and for re-drawing some of the figures. Without the efforts of a wide range of collaborators, this synthesis would not have been possible.

This volume developed out of a productive international conference by the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) and the German 'Citizen create Knowledge – Knowledge creates Citizens' (GEWISS) capacity-building programme in May 2016 under the title 'Citizen Science – Innovation in Open Science, Policy and Society', organised by some of the editors and authors of this volume in Berlin. The ECSA conference which attracted over 360 participants from more than 240 organisations and 30 countries allowed for rich and fruitful discussions on key topics from science and policy with keynotes and panel sessions, interactive workshops and a marketplace with posters. In addition, a ThinkCamp and a range of live demonstrations that included robots and hacking and presentations of local Berlin grassroots science fostered discussions. The European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) fosters a vibrant citizen science community across Europe and works closely with its partner organisations Citizen Science Association (CSA) and Australian Citizen Science Association (ACSA). Members from all organisations have actively contributed to this volume.

Funding for the conference was provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG grant agreement No BO 1919/2-1) and over 24 international partner organisations from science and policy:

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ); German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig; Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena; Museum für Naturkunde Berlin; Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB); Wissenschaft im Dialog; Center for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH); Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle Paris; Museum for Natural History London; Museo di Storia Naturale della Marremma; Fondazione Grosseta Cultura; University College London (UCL); Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF); Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB); Leibniz-Institute for Zoo and Wildlife (IZW); Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF); EarthWatch Institute; Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig; Haus der Zukunft/Futurium Berlin; Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft; Irstea; British Ecological Society (BES); Science Hack Day Berlin. The ThinkCamp was sponsored by Writelatex Limited.

The German DFG grant also supported the development of this book. The GEWISS project was funded by the German ministry of education and research (BMBF grant agreement No 01508444). Further support for the development of this volume was provided through funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 709443 - Doing It Together Science (DITOS) and grant agreement No 6417 - ECOPOTENTIAL. Anne Bowser's contributions were supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The editors have used their best endeavours to ensure URLs provided for external websites are correct and active at the time of going to press. The publisher has no responsibility for websites and cannot guarantee that contents will remain live or appropriate.

#### *Susanne Hecker*

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany

*Mordechay (Muki) Haklay* UCL, UK

*Anne Bowser* Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Washington, DC, US

*Zen Makuch* Imperial College London, UK

*Johannes Vogel* Museum für Naturkunde Berlin Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

*Aletta Bonn* Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ Friedrich Schiller University Jena German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany

# Contents

#### **PART II Innovation in science with and for society**

# List of figures

# List of tables

# List of contributors

**Miriam Aczel** is a President's PhD Scholar at Imperial College London's Centre for Environmental Policy. Her research interests include international energy science and policy, environmental and health impacts of shale gas extraction, and citizen science.

**Janice Ansine** is a senior project manager for citizen science, STEM Faculty, Open University, UK, who manages innovative, accessible webbased initiatives facilitating engagement, research and learning around biodiversity, and supports informal–formal education and outreach STEM activities.

**Arnoud Apituley** works at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). His main interest is in the study of air quality and climate change, combining LIDAR and satellite data. He was involved in the iSPEX experiment.

**Robert Arlinghaus** is a professor of integrative fisheries management at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in Germany. He studies recreational fisheries using inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches.

**Isabelle Arpin** is a senior research scientist at the French National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (Irstea). She studies contemporary changes in ways of managing and investigating nature.

**Heidi L. Ballard** is an associate professor of environmental science education and faculty director of the Center for Community and Citizen Science (CCS) at University of California, Davis, USA. She studies learning and conservation through CCS.

**Frederic Bartumeus** is a research professor on theoretical and computational ecology at the Catalan Institute for Research Studies who also works at the Centre for Advanced Studies of Blanes (CEAB-CSIC) and at Consorci Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF).

**Mathias Becker** is a senior researcher at the European Institute for Participatory Media with a focus on Social Innovation and Social Impact.

**Arne J. Berre** is a chief scientist at SINTEF and an associated professor at the University of Oslo. His research interest is in systems interoperability and standards with a focus on big data, IoT and machine learning/AI – with applications including geographic information, bio technologies and citizen science.

**Aletta Bonn** is a professor of ecosystem services at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena within the German Centre of Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). A co-founding board member of ECSA, her research focuses on biodiversity-society interactions, global change and citizen science.

**Rick Bonney** is the director of the Public Engagement in Science Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a founder of the Citizen Science Association, and editor of the journal *Citizen Science: Theory and Practice.*

**Anne Bowser** is the director of innovation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. She is interested in expanding public participation in and ownership of science and technology, like through crowdsourcing and citizen science.

**Miriam Brandt** is a scientific coordinator at the IZW in Berlin, Germany. She currently leads several research projects developing novel instruments for knowledge transfer and investigating the impact of citizen science.

**Peter Brenton** leads the field data collection and citizen science support functions of the Atlas of Living Australia, which provides national infrastructure for biodiversity data in Australia. Brenton has a strong interest in data standards and in making data accessible, reusable and available for research, policy and management.

**Martin Brocklehurst** is an independent environmental consultant and ecologist, with international experience on regulation and its application in the public and private sectors. She is a founding member of the European Citizen Science Association and the Citizen Science Global Partnership.

**Neil D. Burgess** is with the Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate at the University of Copenhagen and also with United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre, in Cambridge, UK.

**Linda Carton** is an assistant professor of Spatial Planning at Radboud University Nijmegen, Institute for Management Research (IMR). Carton's research is focused on sustainable governance arrangements, citizen science, community planning, participatory sensing and innovative mapping practices.

**Jade Cawthray** is a PhD student at University of Dundee, Scotland. Her PhD research explores how co-created citizen science practices can support communities in taking action on the issues and challenges that matter to them.

**Luigi Ceccaroni** is a manager in Engagement & Science at Earthwatch in Oxford, UK. Since 2014, he has been a member of the Board of Directors and the Steering Committee of the European Citizen Science Association.

**Irene Celino** is a research manager at Cefriel, where she leads the Knowledge Technologies research group, working on Human Computation for the active involvement of human contributors and Semantic Interoperability of data and services.

**Colin Chapman** is a senior data manager within the Department for Natural Resources at the Welsh Government. His expertise includes working at the policy/citizen science interface, as well as with multiple stakeholder groups in the citizen science arena.

**Oscar Corcho** is a full professor at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He co-leads the Ontology Engineering Group, working on the areas of Ontological Engineering, Semantic Web, Open Data, Open Science. He coordinates the EU project STARS4ALL.

**Indiana Coronado** is a member of the department of biology, faculty of sciences and technology, Herbarium of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, León, Nicaragua. She is also a research fellow at the Missouri Botanical Garden in Saint Louis, Missouri.

**Finn Danielsen** is an ecologist with NORDECO. He collaborates with natural and social science colleagues from many countries. He pilots locally based natural resource monitoring programmes, and he examines their reliability and usefulness for decision-making.

**Jeroen Devilee** is social scientist and advisor at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). His interests include citizen science, stakeholder engagement in knowledge production, risk governance and identification of new risks.

**Daniel Dörler** is a researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria. He is founder and coordinator of the Citizen Science Network Austria and its associated platform *Österreich forscht*. Dörler is a pioneer in Open Innovation in Science in Austria, a member of various advisory boards and an organiser of the Austrian Citizen Science Conference.

**Richard Edwards** is an emeritus professor of education at the University of Stirling, UK. He has researched and published extensively on adult learning outside formal educational institutions, including learning through citizen science.

**Martin Enghoff** is sociologist with NORDECO in Denmark. He works with community involvement in natural resource management and rural development processes.

**Lisa Garbe** is a researcher at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. She works on telecommunication and Internet ownership and control, conducting large-N analyses covering Africa, and occasionally spends time in Africa for field research.

**Claudia Göbel** is project manager at the European Citizen Science Association and guest researcher at Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. She works on the organisation of citizen science, links to open science and policy engagement.

**Margaret Gold** is a project officer at the European Citizen Science Association for the WeObserve project. She specialises in designing mobile and web-based platforms for citizen science, community-building and engagement, and running creative collaboration events.

**François Grey** is the director of digital strategy at University of Geneva and heads Citizen Cyberlab, a partnership on rethinking public participation in research, with CERN and the UN Institute for Training and Research.

**Michel Grothe** works at Geonovum in the Netherlands and is a programme manager of INSPIRE. He is involved in the Smart Emission citizen science project in the city of Nijmegen, specialising in open data.

**Mordechai (Muki) Haklay** is a professor of geographic information science at UCL. His research interests include public access to environmental information, citizen science, participatory GIS and mapping, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for geospatial technologies.

**John Harlin**, a former mountain guide and outdoor writer, directs the Alpine Institute at the Leysin American School in Switzerland and is cochair of ECSA's working group on citizen science in education.

**Susanne Hecker** is a researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany. Her research focus is on science communication in citizen science at the science-society-policy interface and she organised the first ECSA Conference.

**Florian Heigl** is a postdoc at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria. He is also founder of the project Roadkill and initiator and coordinator of the Citizen Science Network Austria and its associated platform *Österreich forscht*. He is a member of various advisory boards and an active networker and organiser of the annual Austrian Citizen Science Conference.

**Thomas Hillman** is an associate professor of IT and learning at the University of Gothenburg. His research investigates the transformation of technologies and epistemic practices with a focus on learning processes in large-scale online communities.

**Franz Hölker** is a senior scientist at IGB Berlin and an associate professor at FU Berlin. He is researching the biological impacts of light pollution on a wide range of biological processes, partly together with citizen scientists.

**Sune Holt** is a climate change adaptation consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank. He is interested in global development, eco-sustainable solutions and biodiversity conservation.

**Alan Irwin** is a professor in the Department of Organization at Copenhagen Business School. His research field is Science, Technology and Innovation Studies with special focus on scientific governance and research policy.

**Per Moestrup Jensen** is an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He works with wildlife biology and associated zoonotic diseases. He teaches basic ecology and zoology in a number of courses.

**Christoph Keller** is a full professor of experimental astrophysics at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. His research centres on polarised light. He is one of the developers of the citizen science instrument iSPEX.

**Barbara Kieslinger** is a senior researcher at the Centre for Social Innovation – ZSI, Vienna, Austria. She studies online social networking practice, digital social innovation and public participation processes.

**Heidy Kikillus** is a research fellow at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Her interests include urban ecology and biosecurity, specifically pets that may become pests.

**Sarah Kirn** is the education programs strategist for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, where she designed and developed the Vital Signs citizen science programme. She serves on the board of the Citizen Science Association.

**Laure Kloetzer** is an assistant professor in Sociocultural Psychology at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where she studies how research contributes to social innovation and institutional transformation. She leads the ECSA and EU COST Action working groups on Learning & Education.

**Frank Kresin** is a managing director of the DesignLab at the University of Twente, fellow of Waag Society, and board member of V2\_, Tetem and The Mobile City. He is interested in citizen science and empowerment.

**Christopher Kyba** is a physicist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany. His work focuses on quantification of artificial light in outdoor environments.

**Poppy Lakeman-Fraser** is the senior coordinator of a UK-wide public engagement network, OPAL. She is a citizen science practitioner, has a background in global change ecology and was the first coordinator of ECSA.

**Anne Land-Zandstra** is an assistant professor of science communication at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her research interest includes the motivations, expectations and learning impact of citizen scientists.

**Marie-Elise Lecoq** is the lead architect, analyst and developer with GBIF France and is largely responsible for the development of the GBIF France biodiversity data portal. Lecoq is a strong advocate for open data, data sharing and community-driven infrastructure

**Didier Guy Leibovici** is a member of the Nottingham GeoSpatial Institute, University of Nottingham, who has interests in geo-computational data analytics, including scientific workflows, uncertainty and spatial analysis. His research, for a range of environmental domains, looked into data quality of crowdsourcing.

**Chris Leonhard** has an interest in citizen science and enquiry-based learning. He is the former head of science at Leysin American School and the co-founder of the LETS Study Leysin project.

**Chunming Li** is a researcher at IUE, CAS in Xiamen, China. His research interests are environmental sensing network, participatory sensing and environmental management.

**Grégoire Loïs** works at the National History Museum in Paris, France. In the ecology lab, he works on citizen science initiatives dedicated to feed macro-ecology research activities and policy tools such as largescale indicators.

**Monique Luckas** is the head of press and public relations at Futurium in Berlin, Germany. She studied communication science and is fascinated by communication structures in citizen science projects.

**Dana Mahr** is an historian and sociologist of science and medicine at the University of Geneva. Her research focuses on participatory phenomena in various areas and historical periods. In addition, she works on experiential knowledge and risk.

**Karen Makuch** is a lecturer in Environmental Law at Imperial College London, Centre for Environmental Policy, where she teaches international environmental law. Her research areas include inter alia, environmental roles and rights of children, and citizen science and fracking regulation.

**Zen Makuch** is an international barrister who directs the Sustainable Transitions and Food Systems research initiatives at Imperial College London. A co-founding board member of ECSA, he designed and applied the EU environmental protection/biodiversity conservation implementation strategies.

**Ilona Marenbach** is a certified sociologist who worked as editor and editor-in-chief of Radio Multikulti, a multicultural-multilingual broadcast programme in Germany. She was deputy Editor-in-Chief of radioeins and is now head of the multimedia science editorial office of Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb).

**Andreas Matheus** is the managing director of Secure Dimensions GmbH (Germany), focusing on Single-Sign-On security solutions, based upon open standards for distributed systems, such as spatial data infrastructure for smart cities and citizen science.

**Katherine Mathieson** is chief executive of the British Science Association, an independent charity that is seeking to make science a fundamental part of culture and society.

**Suvodeep Mazumdar** is a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University. He conducts inter-disciplinary research on highly engaging, interactive and visual mechanisms in conjunction with complex querying techniques for understanding large complex datasets.

**Diarmuid McDonnell** is a research fellow in social policy, University of Birmingham. His research explores the determinants of nonprofit misconduct and vulnerability, and utilises linked administrative data derived from charity regulators internationally.

**Rosy Mondardini** is the managing director of the Citizen Science Center Zurich, a joint initiative of ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich to engage scientists and the public in next-generation citizen science projects.

**Susana Nascimento** is a researcher and policy analyst at the European Commission, Joint Research Centre, EU Policy Lab. She works on future oriented technology, blockchain and DLTs, artificial intelligence, transdisciplinarity, and open science and technology.

**Erik Noordijk** is an air-quality researcher at RIVM, where he is involved in the MAN (ammonia measurement) network in which nature managers and volunteers of 85 nature areas co-operate with RIVM on a voluntary basis.

**Jasminko Novak** is a professor of information systems at the University of Applied Sciences Stralsund and leads the European Institute for Participatory Media. Collective intelligence and participatory systems are among the core areas of his research.

**Erinma Ochu** is a transdisciplinary researcher and social entrepreneur in the Ecosystems and Environment Research Centre at the University of Salford. She co-designs immersive experiences to offer new perspectives on global challenges.

**Alessandro Oggioni** is a researcher at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR, Italy) - Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (IREA). Oggioni specialises in data management, spatial data infrastructure, Sensor Web Enablement and other web-based services.

**Jessie Oliver** researches how to design interactive citizen science technologies to find species in environmental acoustic recordings, and she advocates for citizen science nationally and globally through her work with the Australian Citizen Science Association.

**Roger Owen** is a principal scientist at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency specialising in international research, natural capital and citizen science. Owen was the first co-chair of the EPA Network Interest Group on Citizen Science.

**John Palmer** is a tenure-track professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He uses citizen science in his work on human mobility and migration, social segregation and disease ecology.

**Alison Parker** is an ecologist and citizen science enthusiast, currently supporting scientists and exploring citizen science for environmental policy as an ORISE postdoctoral fellow hosted by the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC, USA.

**Dan Patton** has been teaching science for 10 years. He is passionate about getting kids learning science through authentic, hands-on activities with real-world applications, such as citizen science, STEM and entrepreneurship.

**Eleonore Pauwels** is the director of the Anticipatory Intelligence (AI) Lab with the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is a writer and international science policy expert, who specialises in the governance and democratisation of converging technologies.

**Taru Peltola** is a senior research scientist at the Finnish Environment Institute. She studies knowledge practices in environmental policy, transformative outcomes of citizen science and citizen science in contentious societal issues.

**Lisa Pettibone** is a former postdoc at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, Germany. She coordinated the capacity-building programme 'GEWISS' and among other things published a guide on how to conduct citizen science. Pettibone's research interests are sustainability sciences.

**Tina Phillips** is a social science researcher based at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, USA. Her work focuses on building evaluation capacity for and researching socio-ecological outcomes from citizen science.

**Jaume Piera** is a researcher at the ICM-CSIC and CREAF, both in Barcelona, Spain. His research is focused on environmental monitoring systems, mostly based on citizen science. He is member of the ECSA steering committee.

**Michael Køie Poulsen** is a Danish socio-ecologist with NORDECO. He supports local communities in the Arctic and developing regions in designing and implementing monitoring programmes with focus on biodiversity and living resources.

**Anett Richter** is a postdoctoral scholar at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany. She led the development of Citizen Science Strategy 2020 for Germany and coordinated the capacity-building programme 'GEWISS'. Richter's research is about citizen science as a concept and understanding the people involved in citizen science.

**Jeroen Rietjens** is an instrument scientist working at SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research as performance lead on the development of airborne and space-based highly accurate multi-angle polarimeters for climate and air-quality research.

**Lucy Robinson** is citizen science manager at the Natural History Museum London. As a citizen science practitioner for 10 years, she champions best practices and is PI on the LEARN CitSci research programme.

**Jose Miguel Rubio Iglesias** is a geospatial engineer working at the European Environment Agency. He is a co-chair of the EPA Network Interest Group on Citizen Science and works on the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive.

**Ricardo M. Rueda** is with the Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, León, Nicaragua. He works with Flora of Nicaragua and studied in Saint Louis, Missouri.

**Sven Schade** is a scientific project officer at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC). He provides scientific advice to policy on topics such as citizen science, the use of new data sources, and digital transformation.

**Teresa Schäfer** is a researcher at the Centre for Social Innovation - ZSI, Vienna, Austria. Her work focuses on participation processes in digital social innovations and the assessment of its impact.

**Bernard Schiele** is a researcher and a professor at UQAM (Montreal). He works on the socio-dissemination of S&T. He is also a founding member and current member of the Scientific Committee of the PCST network.

**Sibylle Schroer** is scientific coordinator for research on light pollution at the IGB. She connects scientists and supports transdisciplinary communication. She is creating and expanding networks of citizen scientists and all other stakeholders.

**Linda See** is a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria whose research interests intersect the fields of citizen science. She has volunteered in geographic information and Earth Observation.

**Fermin Serrano Sanz** is the commissioner for knowledge economy and innovation at the Government of Aragon. He was a member of the team that developed the White Paper for the European Citizen Science Strategy and actively promotes and supports citizen science in Europe.

**Andrea Sforzi** is the director of the Maremma Natural History Museum in Grosseto, Italy. He actively promotes environmental citizen science initiatives, as well as national and international CS networking. He is a founding member of ECSA.

**Lea Shanley** served as an Obama White House Presidential Innovation Fellow, as founder and co-chair of the Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Community of Practice, and as founding director of the Wilson Center's Commons Lab.

**Jennifer Shirk** works at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and as Director of the Citizen Science Association. She explores practices and connects people across disciplines to support innovations and integrity in both research and engagement.

**Andrea Sieber** is a scientist at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. Her current research topics are cultural sustainability, landscape, participatory research and education.

**Melanie Smallman** is lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at UCL and co-director of the Responsible Research and Innovation Hub. Her research looks at public attitudes toward technologies and how these views influence science and policy.

**Frans Snik** works at Leiden University on optical technology for astronomy and Earth observation. He led the iSPEX project that involved several thousand participants all over Europe to measure air pollution with a smartphone add-on.

**Leysin American School high school students** travel from their homes around the world to be educated in the mountains of Switzerland.

**Erik Tielemans** is the head of department Research & Development Environmental Quality, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).

**John Tweddle** is the head of the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity at the Natural History Museum London. His interests span citizen science theory and practice, wildlife identification training and urban nature conservation research.

**Elizabeth Tyson** is a research fellow at Conservation X Labs in Washington, DC. She builds capacity and conducts research and outreach on behalf of open innovation, citizen science and crowdsourcing as methods for driving innovative solutions to our environmental problems.

**Paul van Genuchten** is a software engineer at GeoCat BV (the Netherlands). He works with various organisations and communities on the GeoNetwork opensource project, an open standards–based catalogue for datasets with a spatio-temporal focus.

**Roy van Grunsven** is an ecologist and entomologist from IGB and Dutch Butterfly Conservation. He studies the effect of artificial light on moths and other organisms and frequently works with citizen scientists in monitoring programmes.

**Edith van Putten** is an environmental researcher at RIVM. She is an expert in building sensors and is involved in several citizen science projects concerning air quality and radiation.

**Arnold van Vliet** is a biologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands who focuses on monitoring, analysing, forecasting and communicating climate impact on biodiversity and society and on how society can adapt.

**Ella Vogel** is the projects development officer for the National Biodiversity Network in the UK. Her primary focus is on improving open access to biodiversity information across the UK via the NBN Atlas portal.

**Johannes Vogel** is director general of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and professor for Biodiversity and Public Science at the Humboldt University. He is chair of the European Citizen Science Association and the EU commissions Open Science Policy Platform.

**Katrin Vohland** heads the research programme 'public engagement with science' at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. She conducts research on the interface between biodiversity policy, science and society, with a strong emphasis on citizen science.

**Hester Volten** works at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (the Netherlands) as an air-quality scientist who specialises in citizen science. Among others, she was involved in the iSPEX project.

**Stephanie von Gavel** was the business development manager of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) for several years. She was instrumental as a founding board member in the establishment of the Australian Citizen Science Association (ACSA) and continues to contribute to driving its strategic, institutional and policy directions.

**Jan Vonk** works at RIVM on measurements of particulate matter within the Dutch national air-quality monitoring network, and is always on the lookout for new applications and approaches, including the use of sensors.

**Marita Voogt** coordinates the RIVM programme 'Innovation of Environmental Monitoring'. She is the contact person for citizen communities in the Netherlands as well as jointly responsible for the content of the knowledge and data portal.

**Wolfgang Wägele** is the director of the Leibniz-Institute for Animal Biodiversity, also known in the German Rhine region as Museum Koenig. He promotes the co-operation between expert taxonomists among citizen scientists, ecologists and governmental agencies to improve biodiversity monitoring in Germany.

**Ulrich Walz** is a professor for landscape ecology and GIS at the University of Applied Sciences (HTW) in Dresden. He works on the theme of landscape changes and their impacts on landscape functions and biodiversity.

**Wolfgang Wende** is a scientist at IOER Dresden and professor at Technische Universität Dresden, Germany. He works on landscape change and management and he integrates the landscape focus with citizen science.

**Joost Wesseling** is senior scientist in Environmental Quality at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). More recently, he has been involved in studies about the application of sensors for environmental monitoring.

**Sarah West** is a senior researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York. She is part of SEI's Practice and Research in Citizen Science (SPARCS) group: designing, conducting and researching citizen science projects across the world.

**Jamie Williams** is a principal consultant for Environment Systems (UK), an environmental data company, where he works on the interface between research and development, and industry, with a particular interest in innovation and applied science.

**Daniel Wyler** is a retired professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He has a strong interest in participatory research and has established a center of citizen science in Zurich at the university and the ETH.

# 1 Innovation in open science, society and policy – setting the agenda for citizen science

#### Susanne Hecker1,2, Muki Haklay3, Anne Bowser4, Zen Makuch5, Johannes Vogel6 and Aletta Bonn1,2,7

*1 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany*

*2 German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany*

*3 University College London, UK*

*4 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, US*

*5 Imperial College London, UK*

*6 Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Germany*

*7 Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany*

corresponding author email<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
In: Hecker, S., Haklay, M., Bowser, A., Makuch, Z., Vogel, J. & Bonn, A. 2018. *Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy*. UCL Press, London. https://doi.org/10.14324 /111.9781787352339

*Simply generating and communicating scientific knowledge is not sufficient [to combat biodiversity loss]* . . . *Knowledge of traditional and 'ordinary' citizens [brings] possibilities for innovation.*

(Turnhout et al. 2012, 454)

*This is renaissance, your dentist now an authority on butterflies and you (in retrospect this happened so pleasantly, watching clouds one afternoon) connected by Twitter to the National Weather Service. This is revolution, breaking down barriers between expert and amateur, with new collaborations across class and education. Pygmy hunters and gatherers use smartphones to document deforestation in the Congo Basin. High school students identify fossils in soils from ancient seas in upstate New York. Do-it-yourself biologists make centrifuges at home.*

*This is falling in love with the world, and this is science, and at the risk of sounding too much an idealist, I have come to believe they are the same thing.*

(Russell 2014, p. 11)

## Background

Citizen science is a rapidly growing field with expanding legitimacy. Often seen as a cluster of activities under a larger umbrella of concepts, including 'open science' and 'open innovation', citizen science expands public participation in science and supports alternative models of knowledge production. This includes strengthening scientific research by engaging with a variety of topics and information sources, and fostering cross- or trans-disciplinary knowledge production. Citizen science can expand stakeholder participation and introduce new perspectives and information as well as new partnerships. Many projects are opening up cuttingedge areas of science, such as gene editing and synthetic biology, to new audiences, enabling a wider discussion about their societal implications. In these ways, citizen science projects are often initiated to address an immediate problem or research question, while also building capacity for communities to participate in science and shape policy decision-making and implementation in the longer term (see box 1.1).

Research in citizen science takes a diverse approach where the balance between scientific, educational, societal and policy goals varies across projects (see Kieslinger et al. in this volume). A common, shared goal is to collect and analyse information that is scientifically valuable. This distinguishes citizen science from areas such as experiential learning or environmental education for sustainability, although learning and other educational goals and outcomes are additional valuable aims and contributions of some citizen science projects.

It is easy to think of citizen science as a new phenomenon. However, it actually has historic roots (see Mahr et al. in this volume), which have been recently invigorated by evolving digital technologies such as networked mobile devices that connect people easily and effectively with the scientific community and with their peers. The growth of citizen science has also been driven by the public's desire to be actively involved in scientific processes. This may be a result of recent societal trends, including the rise in tertiary education (see Haklay in this volume) and the increasing value placed in science, as well as the wish to actively participate in providing evidence to help manage urgent societal problems.

The rich history of citizen science extends across a range of areas, notably astronomy, biology and biodiversity monitoring, environmental monitoring and public health (see Mahr et al. in this volume). Recent projects have also explored opportunities for engagement in transportation,

#### Box 1.1. Citizen science: Definitions

The concept of citizen science is often attributed to two distinct sources. In 1995, Alan Irwin used the term to refer to a paradigm where research goals were collaboratively determined by professional scientists and the public in the UK (Irwin 1995). Around the same time, Rick Bonney began to use the same term to refer to numerous projects at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the United States, which involved members of the public in avian research (Bonney 1996). Many more recent definitions have been offered since then, with various degrees of alignment to these early roots (Eitzel et al. 2017). Especially notable for this volume are the definitions advanced by governments and other policymaking bodies.

In the United States, for example, citizen science was defined at the national level first by John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) under the Obama Administration (Holdren 2015). Holdren's memo defined citizen science broadly, as a process where 'the public participates voluntarily in the scientific process, addressing real-world problems in ways that may include formulating research questions, conducting scientific experiments, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting results, making new discoveries, developing technologies and applications, and solving complex problems'. This definition was later picked up in the US Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing Act, signed into law in 2017.

The European Commission has used the definition from the Oxford English Dictionary, defining citizen science as 'scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and scientific institutions'. It also notes that 'Citizen Science is often linked with outreach activities, science education or various forms of public engagement with science' (European Commission 2016c, p. 54).

To complement the definition of citizen science, the European Citizen Science Association has also developed *Ten Principles of Citizen Science* (Robinson et al. in this volume).

irrigation and agriculture and energy production (including bioenergy) among other topics (Lisjak, Schade & Kotsev 2017). Citizen science projects related to public policy matters are now touching on many agendas, from environmental protection, to health and education, to research and innovation. Those intended to drive innovation have particularly led to collaboration across the spectrum of science, medicine and engineering disciplines, as well as the social sciences. Citizen science is also encouraging interaction between practitioners and key societal stakeholders and public policymakers, although this remains limited (see Nascimento et al. in this volume).

In parallel, citizen science is becoming more widely discussed and accepted within the scientific community as an appropriate research approach to answer specific research questions and meet scientific demands. Thousands of scientific projects involve millions of citizens who are investing extensive time, energy and resources in research supported by new technologies (Bonney et al. 2014). While many volunteers wish to contribute to scientific research and be included in policy responses and decision-making, many are also motivated by an interest in research and the integration of science and society (Rotman et al. 2012). Researchers and policymakers further express the need for improved evidence, participation and knowledge as the legitimate bases for decision-making, which supports the demand for citizen science (see for example Smallman in this volume).

The growth in citizen science projects has seen them operating at multiple spatial scales, from neighbourhood and village concerns over environmental issues, to continental-scale monitoring of trends. This also means that the policy implications of citizen science projects can range across jurisdictions, from the international (e.g., the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) to the regional (e.g., the European Union), national (e.g., the US federal climate change policy) and sub-national (e.g., California's low-carbon transport policies), to community groups and ad-hoc organisations established by concerned citizens (e.g., water or air quality monitoring). Citizen science can also cover the entire temporal range of scientific enquiry, from short-term initiatives to address current issues (such as mapping accident-prone traffic spots in a city, or litter or invasive species) to long-term monitoring (e.g., weather or animal populations). These diverse backdrops require theoretical and practical understanding of how citizen science operates both in general and specific contexts.

#### Citizen science contributions to policy

Citizen science is unusual as a developing research field in that there is acute awareness among its practitioners about the importance of its wider current and potential societal and – increasingly – political impacts. Unlike most other academic fields, the conversations taking place inside the community are outward-looking. A good example of this is the way guidance documents are being developed through bottom-up approaches, which reach out to the practitioner and research community and to policymakers. Examples include the Socientize *White Paper on Citizen Science for Europe*, intended to reach out to a wider group of researchers and policymakers at the European level (Serrano Sanz et al. 2014), and the European Citizen Science Association's *Ten Principles of Citizen Science,* which both speak to practitioners in the field and provide orientation for science-based policy by establishing universal principles for citizen science projects (Robinson et al. in this volume). The *Greenpaper Citizen Science Strategy 2020 for Germany* (Bonn et al. 2016; Richter et al. in this volume) is another strategic-political document developed in collaboration with more than a hundred scientific organisations and universities, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), learned societies, science shops, the media, individual researchers and members of the public (see box 2.1).

In the political sphere, the value of citizen science is starting to be recognised at the European Union policy level (Hyder et al. 2015; Smallman in this volume) and by European Member States (box 1.2), as well as by national governments in the United States (see box 1.1) and Australia. Global NGOs, including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), have also voiced their support. Citizen science therefore enables both traditional as well as modern avenues of engagement between science and society (Mazumdar et al. in this volume). In fact, in 2013 an internal European Commission document stated that the *'*development of communication technologies through the internet creates highly valuable opportunities for citizen science and crowdsourcing, offering enhanced levels of participation in assessing (and determining) the success of EU environment policies' (European Commission 2013, p.4).

Governments and policymakers need evidence and scientifically reliable, up-to-date information to identify, formulate, implement and evaluate policies. They are obliged to fulfil regulations, such as those on environmental monitoring and assessments under EU directives like the Habitats Directive or the Birds Directive, or international conventions like the Convention on Biological Diversity. Citizen science provides the

#### Box 1.2. National contexts: Spotlight on Germany

*We want to involve citizens and stakeholders from civil society consistently in the discussion about future projects and the design of research agendas. We want to develop new forms of citizen participation and the communication of science and merge them into an overall concept. (2013)*

*We want to intensify the dialogue of economy, policy, science and society, trial new formats of participation of civil society and strengthen science communication. (2018)*

> Extracts from coalition contracts of the German government

In Germany, a two-year citizen science capacity-building programme was implemented in 2014–2016 by the Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF) to assess the potential and challenges of citizen science. Researchers from all fields – citizens, civil society organisations and scientific institutions – contributed their ideas and experiences to the enhancement of citizen science in a programme that built on dialogue and participation. The resulting *Greenpaper Citizen Science Strategy 2020 for Germany* (Bonn et al. 2016; Richter et al. in this volume) received significant attention from policy and international citizen science networks. A subsequent outcome of the capacity-building programme and the strategy was a federal BMBF funding scheme to support citizen science projects in 2017.

opportunity for policymakers to create programmes with scientific researchers to support these obligations, or to draw upon existing initiatives. In the United States, for example, the annual State of the Birds report – produced by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI), a consortium of federal agencies and NGOs – utilises contributions from the citizen science project eBird to assess the status and health of key species, and promotes birds as indicators of overall environmental health and human well-being. This report is used to help the US government offer progress reports on international commitments, including the Migratory Bird Treaty, and to evaluate and refine domestic policy, for example, policy related to land use.

At the same time, policymakers want to ensure the societal relevance of their actions, and this calls for stronger engagement with society (European Commission 2013; see also Nascimento et al. and Parker & Owen, both in this volume). For example, the legislation of the EU's Environmental *Acquis Communautaire* includes periodic mandatory monitoring and reporting requirements, much of which can be standardised for citizen science participation in such diverse activities as species/habitat monitoring, and air or water quality monitoring. Outside of Europe, other political bodies outline similar values. In the United States, for example, citizen science is broadly portrayed as accelerating research and addressing politically relevant social needs by drawing on previously untapped resources, namely the public.

## Citizen science and societal relevance

Historically, innovation opportunities have been available to a minority of the population, particularly privileged staff in the research and development sections of major firms or public sector institutions. In contrast, citizen science offers innovative potential at the science-society interface by drawing in many millions of participants worldwide. Research is literally *'*opened' up to members of society and they often become part of the whole process, thus making science more inclusive. This allows members of the public to learn about, understand and discuss scientific methods, standards and values, developing their overall scientific literacy. This can increase public awareness of the value of scientific research in addressing problems faced in everyday life as well as global challenges. Citizen science can therefore positively influence society by providing opportunities for learning, empowerment, enjoyment of nature, social engagement or enhanced scientific capital (see Edwards et al. in this volume). Ideally, therefore, citizen science can contribute to good citizenship and, in turn, progressive societies.

Collaboration with members of society also offers the opportunity for scientists to make their research more relevant and to extend its impact. Citizen science practitioners are given the chance to become ambassadors for science (Druschke & Seltzer 2012) as they interact directly with members of society while at the same time benefiting from participants' expertise, knowledge and engagement. This brings the need for new forms of science communication in citizen science to better integrate collective science, society and policy aims and ambitions whilst the level of public collaboration and direct interaction varies considerably across citizen science projects (see Haklay; Novak et al.; Gold & Ochu, all in this volume) and needs to be considered accordingly.

One way in which practitioners and researchers are furthering the influence of citizen science is through the creation of dedicated associations, such as those in the United States, Europe, and Australia (Storksdieck et al. 2016). Similar needs can also be seen among practitioners at research universities (Wyler & Haklay in this volume). These new organisations and structures act as catalysts that allow communication with policymakers, as well as a forum for discussion among practitioners.

## Open science and citizen science

'Open science' and 'open-access' approaches are at the forefront of new frameworks for research and innovation (see European Commission 2016c). Citizen science is recognised as an important element in the conceptualisation of open science, which has gained importance as part of the rethinking of how science relates to wider societal goals. Open science is a framework for how scientists interact with one another and how the public engages with, and is engaged in, science (European Commission 2016c). Open science engages with issues such as accessible data and publications, open evaluation and policies as well as developing its own tools. This includes open access, which is driven by the understanding that publicly funded research should be accessible to all members of society. The open science imperative of sharing information and results from publicly funded research has led to the promotion of the open access publication model (where scientific publications are freely available rather than subject to expensive subscription rates) as well as opendata repositories (where datasets are made freely available to other potential users).

Citizen science has a role to play in both the open science and openaccess movements, and is in turn driven by them. The call for open-access research publication resonates with citizen science. Without it, members of the public who participate in research may well be deprived of the fruits of their participation, and without access to (other) research literature, citizens may not be equipped to conduct or analyse their own research.

However, citizen science means going beyond publishing data and results. Arguably, it is changing the way that science is done by opening up research throughout the process; from idea generation and planning to conducting the research and disseminating outputs (see Haklay in this volume). Citizen science also tends to call for open science communication in which multiple forms of media are used throughout the research process. Collaboration with the mass media in particular further demands novel forms of partnerships and could lead to a different approach to news-making (see Hecker et al. 'Stories' in this volume).

Citizen science is therefore both an aim and an enabler of open science (see Smallman in this volume). It contributes to open science by involving citizens in research, opening up the process of creating new knowledge through participation. In turn, this produces greater understanding of science through open information and communication. Engagement in citizen science can also stimulate active participation in policy-making.

#### Scope of this volume

This volume discusses the current and potential future contribution of citizen science and scientific innovation to a more productive and open science-society-policy interface. The chapters identify experience-based solutions that could be applied in different contexts. The emphasis is on identifying solutions to promote a vibrant citizen science community by bringing together major stakeholders and individuals to improve research, understanding and engagement in society, policy, education, innovation and academia.

Previous edited volumes have considered the value of citizen science in environmental research (Dickinson & Bonney 2012), the potential for citizen science to bridge the science-society gap (Cavalier & Kennedy 2016), and how citizen science can advance research through knowledge acquisition and transfer (Ceccaroni & Piera 2017). However, this volume adds to the discussion in that it focuses on the value of citizen science for informing policy whilst also contributing to education, scientific knowledge and societal organisation. The collective imperative is to understand and shape a world characterised by accelerated change and multiple grand challenges across the policy landscape.

#### Structure and content of this volume

The volume is structured in five main sections dedicated to the innovative potential of citizen science for science, policy and society. It also includes a section dedicated to case studies illustrating best practice examples.

The chapters provide up-to-date scientific background information and show the variety of citizen science research from the natural to the social sciences, covering its practical application and technology design. Some chapters provide applications of citizen science in various contexts illustrated with case studies; others reflect on citizen science theory and concepts and their application.

This book is mainly written from a European perspective as the idea for the volume originated at the First European Citizen Science Conference held in Berlin, Germany, in 2016 (see Hecker et al. 'Innovation in Citizen Science' 2018). At the same time, the book includes international perspectives (see figure 1.1 for the global network of contributing authors) and authors were encouraged to include international case studies and, where appropriate, enlarge their insights and conclusions to a wider view. Throughout, the chapters offer critical reflection, guidance and best

**Fig. 1.1** Global network of contributing authors to this volume (lines indicate connections between co-authors)

practice examples of citizen science that can be applied to international contexts.

#### Section I: Innovation in citizen science – setting the scene

The first section sets the scene by introducing key elements for innovation in citizen science, including standards to ensure high-quality research approaches; integration with, and contribution to, science; the nature of participation; supporting technology and infrastructures; and evaluation.

As baseline for citizen science projects, *Robinson et al.* identify and explain the Ten Principles of Citizen Science as the product of international collaboration within the citizen science community. The ten principles present a framework of standards to foster excellence in all aspects of citizen science. Focusing on the innovative potential of citizen science, *Shirk and Bonney* highlight the strengths of citizen science for data collection, processing capacity, public engagement and policy. They then apply their expertise to highlight scientific innovations emerging in different research contexts.

*Haklay* casts light on the nature and relevance of participation in science-linked decision-making, with useful lessons for policy-making processes and their participants. He advocates for a differentiated understanding of engagement in citizen science and identifies different types of participation according to participants' knowledge and engagement levels. *Brenton et al.* explain how the important revolution in information technology infrastructures enables and supports citizen science. They provide guidance on how to select and use appropriate digital tools, so that data is fit for purpose and can be used to meet existing demands, for example, also by government agencies. *Kieslinger et al.* provide an open framework for evaluating citizen science projects. The evaluation criteria they identify apply both to the process and outcomes of citizen science projects.

#### Section II: Innovation in science with and for society

Focussing on relevant and up-to-date topics in innovation in science, with a special focus on society, contributions in section II address how citizen science is embedded in science. It addresses questions such as: How can citizen science lead to empowerment and enhance scientific literacy to benefit individuals, communities and society? What is the potential for inclusive participation across society, especially when citizen science involves individuals and communities typically left out of science and policy-making? What are the innovation opportunities and challenges where support is needed, both technically and socially? And how can citizen science best be integrated at the science-society interface of the higher education system?

The chapter on citizen science studies by *Mahr et al.* reflects upon the many heterogeneous projects, methodologies and communities aiming to co-produce reflexiveness and dialogue between citizen science practitioners and researchers. In a highly topical work, *Danielsen et al.* discuss the inclusion of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) in citizen science for science-based land management and its mutual benefits for participants and science. The chapter also explains the relevant conditions for knowledge exchange with indigenous communities in management and decision-making in the research process. *Novak et al.* discuss different forms of citizen engagement in participatory digital social innovation related to do-it-yourself (DIY) science and participatory citizen science, and illustrate common challenges and experiences. The chapter also situates new knowledge in participation models framed by democratic and economic discussions. The following chapter by *Gold* showcases creative collaboration in citizen science and the evolution of ThinkCamp events. It draws useful conclusions for further similar activities. Closing the section, *Wyler and Haklay* discuss the potential of citizen science to be integrated into university research and the related opportunities and challenges. Their chapter points to a template for achieving such an integration in the service of civil society.

#### Section IIa: Case studies

To illustrate citizen science and its various formats and capacity-building initiatives, this section presents four case studies in more depth to be read alongside case studies presented in the chapters themselves (see table 1.1). The case studies in this section aim to highlight citizen science projects from a broader geographic range. Two cover different geographical areas and the other two address different topics of global importance.

The case study by *Li* provides several examples to illustrate activities within the spectrum of citizen science on the Chinese mainland. Public participation in China is becoming a growing movement supported by IT technologies and greater interest in citizen science. The multilingual landscape of citizen science in Europe is the focus of the snapshot by *Hecker et al.*, presenting results of the first European explorative survey on citizen science projects as a baseline for the European Open Science monitor. *Piera and Ceccaroni* present a case study of stakeholder engagement around water quality through the Citclops project, offering

**Table 1.1** Overview on selected case studies presented in this volume

**Table 1.1** (continued)

**Table 1.1** (continued)

**Table 1.1**

(continued)

a framework for understanding and engaging with a variety of stakeholder needs that will benefit a wide range of citizen science projects. The fourth case study, by *Palmer et al.*, is of the Global Mosquito Alert Consortium. It discusses how local projects can engage in mosquito-vector monitoring with a range of partners, and also share interoperable data to advance continental or even global research in epidemiology, biodiversity and other domains.

#### Section III: Innovation at the science-policy interface

This section addresses citizen science at the science-policy interface. The idea that citizen science can lead to better policy formulation, implementation and assessment is critical to this volume. Contributions here relate to questions highly relevant to policy: What are the opportunities for citizen science to feed into better decision-making? What are the synergies and opportunities brought by the science policy priorities of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), open science and citizen science? What are the benefits and challenges of citizen science for nature conservation? And in terms of the bigger picture, how can these benefits and challenges be addressed by strategic developments and feed environmental endeavours?

*Nascimento et al.* offer a high-level exploration of the value of citizen science for empowering citizens while leading to better and more transparent governments. They also assess citizen science's risks. Accordingly, citizen science is shown as a key means of advancing open science. This chapter also references citizen science in action in key areas such as biodiversity monitoring and the identification and monitoring of alien species. Promoting empowerment and behaviour change are identified as key benefits of citizen science. *Smallman* introduces the concept of RRI as a cross-cutting theme of the EU's Horizon 2020 programme that can be used to align the priorities of scientists, policymakers and the public at large. This chapter is important in the context of the current post-factual discourse, which underplays science and the related need to balance scientific objectivity with the competing challenges of market-friendly or politically derived claims in the name of science. Historically, citizen science has been particularly valuable in shaping conservation policy and monitoring outcomes, as demonstrated by *Ballard et al.* This chapter discusses how and why citizen science can contribute to beneficial social and environmental outcomes. *Richter et al.* discuss the challenges and benefits of capacity-building programmes that have developed in Europe with citizen science in mind. They highlight the need to build citizen science projects in line with the five main steps of capacity-building: identifying and engaging different actors; assessing capacities and needs for citizen science in context; developing visions, missions and action plans; building resources such as websites and guidance, and considering implementation and evaluation. *Parker and Owen* show the increasing importance of citizen science for environmental monitoring and its use for Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs) in Europe and the United States. They discuss the accompanying needs and challenges, illustrated through four case studies. Finally, they point to citizen science as having the potential to transform environmental protection through work with government agencies to generate knowledge and find solutions.

#### Section IV: Innovation in technology and environmental monitoring

Chapters in section IV discuss technologies for citizen science and environmental monitoring. In doing so, they address the following questions: How can digital technologies be harnessed to enhance citizen science participation and delivery? What policy and technical solutions can mobile sensor technology offer citizen science? How is data quality ensured, and how can different protocols for ensuring data quality be developed and applied to support fitness for purpose in research and policy deliverables? How can this contribute to advances in environmental monitoring in accordance with existing and emerging regulations? How can these technologies be implemented in monitoring citizen science projects, and what are the challenges of doing so?

Based on assertions that technology will revolutionise the practice of citizen science, the first chapter in this section, by *Mazumdar et al.*, reviews a wide range of technologies available for data collection, data analysis and improving the citizen science experience through new opportunities for interactive participation. One particularly important area of consideration pertains to data standards. *Williams et al.* discuss the role of standards and open data for promoting interoperability and therefore the reuse of data, especially when information is contextualised with metadata that is accurate and up-to-date. Low-cost tools and data standards are also important to the EPAs discussed by *Volten et al.*, who note that agencies increasingly utilise small-sensor networks for environmental monitoring. As explained by *Schroer et al.*, technologies such as mobile applications and co-ordinated, interoperable activities are critical to monitoring artificial light pollution and understanding the impacts on human health and the biosphere.

#### Section V: Innovation in science communication and education

Section V focuses on citizen science innovation in science communication and education. Relevant questions to this topic are: How should primary, secondary and tertiary education and further training opportunities be addressed to optimise citizen science knowledge and participation? Can citizen science benefit learning across different ages and stages in individual learning curricula? How can communication in citizen science improve policy impact? What opportunities and challenges does citizen science provide for scientists collaborating with the media?

Reflecting on learning, education and empowerment through citizen science, *Peltola and Arpin* discuss the need to apply effective techniques in citizen science to ensure inclusiveness for less experienced or privileged participants. *Edwards et al.* offer a societal perspective discussing the potential of citizen science to create science capital as part of the relationship between people's dispositions towards science, participation in science-related activities and science-related outcomes, including learning. *Makuch and Aczel* provide insights into the effects of engaging children in science on their learning processes and understanding of science, as well as on safeguarding the environment. Following this, *Harlin et al.* discuss the opportunities and challenges of using citizen science in schools, both through theoretical reflection and practical case study. *Sforzi et al.* focus on the role of natural history museums as another form of societal institution and a traditional space for two-way learning and education. These organisations offer new opportunities and formats for participant engagement in the contemporary development of citizen science as a network and research field. In the closing chapter, *Hecker et al.* assess the innovative potential, limits and opportunities for science communication in citizen science through case and best practice studies from Europe and New Zealand. They highlight opportunities to engage the public via techniques including storytelling and visualisation.

#### Outlook

This volume demonstrates that citizen science is growing, both in terms of the number of projects and the volume of peer-reviewed research generated from these activities. This trend will continue along with the increasing influence of citizen science on policy agenda-setting, formation, implementation and assessment. Citizen science communities of practice are at the same time becoming increasingly formalised through associations, including established organisations in the United States (the Citizen Science Association – CSA), Europe (the European Citizen Science Association – ECSA) and Australia (the Australian Citizen Science Association – ACSA). Nascent networks are also emerging in other regions, including in Africa and Asia, with the intent of creating associations to convene researchers and practitioners in these areas.

Much of citizen science has been driven by immediate interest and curiosity as well as the practical need to develop science and provide evidence for the policy arena. Greater understanding of the impacts of citizen science in the field of open science and policy is now starting to emerge and is underpinned by sound evidence. In this way, we can build on a stronger understanding of the drivers of citizen science for success.

The conclusion to this volume draws on findings by all chapters and synthesises them to offer recommendations for citizen science practitioners, researchers, educators and policymakers to develop the field of citizen science and advance innovation in open science, society and policy.

At a time in history in which society faces unprecedented grand challenges which require informed, inclusive policy responses across our nations, this book aims to provide a further catalyst for discussions and collaboration among organisations, scientists, practitioners and other stakeholders that are interested in and will gain from citizen science.

Part I Innovation in citizen science – setting the scene

# 2 Ten principles of citizen science

#### Lucy Danielle Robinson1, Jade Lauren Cawthray2, Sarah Elizabeth West3, Aletta Bonn4,5,6 and Janice Ansine7

*1 Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, The Natural History Museum, London, UK*

*2 Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee, UK*

*3 Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York, UK*

*4 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany*

*5 Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany*

*6 German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany*

*7 The Open University, UK*

corresponding author email<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
In: Hecker, S., Haklay, M., Bowser, A., Makuch, Z., Vogel, J. & Bonn, A. 2018. *Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy*. UCL Press, London. https://doi.org/10.14324 /111.9781787352339

#### Highlights

#### Introduction

Citizen science is a flexible concept that has been adapted and applied within diverse situations and disciplines. The rapid expansion of citizen science programmes globally presents researchers and citizen science practitioners with incredible opportunities as well as a challenge: creating cohesion and identifying a common purpose globally, whilst also supporting and enhancing the further expansion, independence, creativity and bottom-up nature of citizen science. Networks such as the global Citizen Science Association (CSA), the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) and the Australian Citizen Science Association (ACSA) provide forums for the exchange of knowledge and ideas, identification of shared goals, networking and developing best practice. In 2015, the ECSA working group on 'Sharing best practice and building capacity for citizen science' developed a document outlining Ten Principles of Citizen Science. Drawing from the collective experiences of many ECSA members, this series of statements set out the key principles which ECSA believes underlies good practice in citizen science, regardless of the academic discipline or cultural context in which it is applied. Used internationally and currently available in 26 languages, the Ten Principles of Citizen Science provide an important starting point for discussion and debate. This chapter introduces the Ten Principles and their development. It gives examples of good practice and explores how the Principles may challenge current working practices to drive excellence in citizen science, maximising the benefits for science, citizen scientists and wider society. Finally, the chapter considers the policy and innovation potential of the Ten Principles in a rapidly expanding and diversifying field.

## Developing the Ten Principles of Citizen Science

The ECSA working group on 'Sharing best practice and building capacity for citizen science' is chaired by the Natural History Museum London and its members come from universities, natural history museums and notfor-profit organisations, representing researchers, citizen science practitioners and networking or co-ordination bodies (see also Sforzi et al. in this volume about the role of museums in citizen science). The working group aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, experience, innovation and lessons learned in the field of citizen science, both within and beyond the ECSA membership. The group's first task was to develop a series of principles or characteristics that underpin responsible and impactful citizen science projects, with the aims of supporting those new to citizen science to deliver high-quality projects and providing a benchmark against which to examine existing citizen science programmes. These became the Ten Principles of Citizen Science and were designed to be applicable across a broad spectrum of citizen science activities.

#### Box 2.1. The Ten Principles of Citizen Science

(for other languages see https://ecsa.citizen-science.net/engage-us /10-principles-citizen-science)

*For example, answering a research question or informing conservation action, management decisions or environmental policy.*

3. Both the professional scientists and the citizen scientists benefit from taking part.

*Benefits may include the publication of research outputs, learning opportunities, personal enjoyment, social benefits, satisfaction through contributing to scientific evidence, for example, to address local, national and international issues, and through that, the potential to influence policy.*

4. Citizen scientists may, if they wish, participate in multiple stages of the scientific process.

*This may include developing the research question, designing the method, gathering and analysing data, and communicating the results.*

*However unlike traditional research approaches, citizen science provides opportunity for greater public engagement and democratisation of science.*

7. Citizen science project data and metadata are made publicly available and where possible, results are published in an open-access format.

*Data sharing may occur during or after the project, unless there are security or privacy concerns that prevent this.*

*(continued)*

Developed between 2013 and 2015, the scope and structure of the Ten Principles were initially informed by reference to existing sets of principles from related disciplines (European Commission 2008; Wing 2014). A longlist of potential principles was generated by working group members before being rationalised and distilled to the 10 most universally applicable. These were presented for consultation with ECSA members and the wider citizen science community multiple times over two years at ECSA General Assemblies, via the ECSA website, e-newsletter and a popular blog written by an ECSA Steering Committee member, with iterative feedback and edits throughout this time. This extensive feedback process led to the Principles becoming more universal (relevant to a diversity of disciplines, projects and audiences), actionable (rather than theoretical), inclusive of individual, societal and policy outcomes, and targeted towards citizen science practitioners (rather than citizen scientists or policymakers). The length of each core Principle was shortened but clarification statements were added to each.

The Ten Principles of Citizen Science were published on the ECSA website in September 2015 (see box 2.1). At the time of writing, the Ten Principles of Citizen Science have been translated by ECSA members into 26 languages to make them accessible to non-English speakers, and this continues to expand.

# Global impact of the Ten Principles of Citizen Science

No systematic review has yet been conducted to measure the extent of use and impact of the Principles, but ECSA headquarters and the working group are recording known uses to create a bank of case studies. To date,

**Fig. 2.1** The Museo di Storia Naturale della Maremma (Natural History Museum of Maremma, Italy) displays the Ten Principles of Citizen Science in their 'Citizen Science Corner' gallery to inspire visitors to participate in local projects. (Source: © Andrea Sforzi)

#### Box 2.2. Case study: How the Ten Principles of Citizen Science informed a US policy brief

*Dr Lea Shanley*

The US Federal Community of Practice for Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science (CCS) is a self-organised grassroots group of more than 350 federal employees representing 60 federal organisations. It seeks to expand and improve the US government's use of crowdsourcing, citizen science and public participation techniques to enhance agency missions and to improve scientific and societal outcomes.

In 2015, the CCS leadership worked closely with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to help shape a policy memo that would guide and encourage the use of these open science and innovation approaches across the federal government. Drawing from the Ten Principles of Citizen Science, the CCS leadership incorporated three core principles into the text of the memo. The memo (Office of Science and Technology Policy 2015) was released on 30 September 2015 as part of the White House's Forum on Citizen Science (Gustetic, Honey & Shanley 2015), co-organised by the CCS.

The principles detailed in the memo emphasised openness, accessibility, meaningful participation and recognition for contributions to ensure that the use of citizen science and crowdsourcing 'is appropriate and leads to [the] greatest value and impact' (Office of Science and Technology Policy 2015). The White House memo directs agencies to adhere to three principles, summarised as:

the Ten Principles have been used in a wide variety of settings, including to inform further development of best practice guidelines for citizen science (including League of European Research Universities 2016; see also Wyler & Haklay in this volume), on Wikipedia to set out ethical considerations in citizen science (Wikipedia 2017), in public-facing museum displays about citizen science (figure 2.1) and to inform government policy, as in the case study of a US White House policy memo described in box 2.2.

## Implementing the Ten Principles of Citizen Science: Successes and challenges

The Ten Principles of Citizen Science are intended to both support and challenge the citizen science practitioner community. Whilst some Principles are implemented within every citizen science project, others are more challenging to incorporate and require a greater investment of time and resources to fulfil. This section examines each Principle in turn, assessing the extent to which the citizen science community is currently meeting it and identifying where there are opportunities to improve practice. The chapters in this volume explore many of these themes in greater depth.

## 1. Citizen science projects actively involve citizens in scientific endeavour that creates new knowledge or understanding.

At the heart of all citizen science projects is the involvement of citizens in real scientific endeavour. Whilst this Principle refers to scientific endeavour in particular, there are many 'citizen science' projects focusing on other disciplines including the arts, geography and social history (see www.zooniverse.org/projects for a range of examples; and see also Mahr et al. in this volume). With many thousands of projects active globally (SciStarter [2017] lists over 1,500 projects) this represents millions of citizen scientists (Roy et al. 2012; Theobald et al. 2015). These impressive levels of participation notwithstanding, citizen science initiatives tend to be less successful at engaging communities that are historically underrepresented in science, including (but not limited to) certain minority ethnic groups and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (Pandya 2012; West, Pateman & Dyke 2016; West & Pateman 2016; see also Peltola & Arpin; Haklay; both in this volume). Significant opportunities remain to collaborate with a greater diversity of participants that are truly reflective of wider society and that also bring new and different knowledge (Danielsen et al. in this volume). Guidance on how project leaders may approach this is emerging (Pandya 2012; Ruzic et al. 2016), and new formats can be found to engage in person (Gold & Ochu in this volume) or through digital technologies (e.g., Novak et al. in this volume). The widening participation agenda is not unique to citizen science and is likely to require a range of long-term changes to be successful, including (but not limited to) greater flexibility in the range of opportunities available, for example, time commitment and prior skills required (see Haklay in this volume), new approaches to publicity and recruitment of participants, language translation of project materials and more participatory project development to ensure project activities and community priorities are better aligned (West & Pateman 2016).

#### 2. Citizen science projects have a genuine science outcome.

This is what distinguishes citizen science from pure education and outreach programmes. Citizen science projects – while also serving learning goals (see e.g., Edwards et al.; Harlin et al.; Makuch & Aczel, all in this volume) – are increasingly resulting in research publications in a wide range of discipline-specific journals, with the number of peer-reviewed publications growing rapidly year on year (Follett & Strezov 2015). Science outcomes delivered by citizen science may also include the development of scientific specimen collections, for example for natural history museums (Sforzi et al. in this volume), tracking progress towards global biodiversity targets (Chandler et al. 2017), implementing changes to science policy and achieving conservation outcomes (see Ballard et al. 2017 for examples). However, there are still some projects that do not use the data collected for scientific purposes, thereby failing to realise the scientific benefits of the project. For example, biological records collected at 15 per cent of the BioBlitz events surveyed in the UK were not passed on to recommended data repositories (Postles & Bartlett 2014). This may be due to lack of staff or financial resources to publish the findings and attain other scientific outputs, uncertainty over the quality of the data, or poor study design resulting in data unsuited to the scientific need. A strong motivation to harness the public engagement benefits of citizen science can also lead to scientific rigour being compromised (see Lakeman-Fraser et al. 2016 for a discussion of this trade-off). However, achieving and maximising science outcomes from citizen science projects is a cornerstone of this field and an essential element in maintaining trust with the citizens that participate.

#### 3. Both the professional scientists and the citizen scientists benefit from taking part.

To be sustainable, citizen science must be mutually beneficial for all parties involved. Benefits may be wide ranging, including scientific outcomes (Shirk *&* Bonney in this volume), social interaction, improved well-being, career development, learning and empowerment (e.g., Bela et al. 2016; Haklay in this volume; Edwards et al. in this volume). Whilst a limited number of resources exist to support the measurement and identification of these benefits (Phillips et al. 2014; Blaney et al. 2016), a broad evidence base of the benefits of participating in citizen science for all parties is lacking. Literature examining the impacts of citizen science has focused attention on the scientific or educational impacts (see Silva et al. 2016). In order for all parties to benefit, parity or overlap in their expectations and motivations for participating is required. West and Pateman (2016) provide a review and guidance on identifying and meeting citizen scientists' motivations, and Geoghegan et al. (2016) examine the motivations of participants and other stakeholders (see also Richter et al. in this volume). These reviews indicate that the numerous motivations for participating should be considered throughout the project lifecycle; ultimately, longterm project success depends on all stakeholders reaping the benefits. Researchers from other disciplines, including those from the social sciences (see also Mahr et al. in this volume), are encouraged to collaborate with citizen science programme leaders to gather more evidence on the benefits a citizen science approach offers for all involved.

#### 4. Citizen scientists may, if they wish, participate in multiple stages of the scientific process.

The dominant method for engaging the public in scientific research is the 'contributory' method, where the public solely collect and submit data to research projects. However, the citizen science community recognises that a multitude of benefits is likely if the public is more deeply involved in scientific research, through 'collaborative' and 'co-created' methods (for an example of the latter, see Collins 2016; see also Novak et al. in this volume). Involving participants in more stages of the research process can foster a greater sense of ownership for the participants, and benefit the research by incorporating local knowledge and expertise (Corburn 2007). However, little is published on the practice and impacts of collaborative and co-created citizen science, and additional research and sharing of evaluations in this area would be welcome. Some pressing questions include: What do the different citizen science approaches (contributory, collaborative and co-created) achieve for science and for citizens? How can collaborative or co-created projects be run at a large scale whilst maintaining a close personal connection between the scientists and participants? And how can citizens be actively supported to participate in aspects of the scientific process beyond data collection and processing?

#### 5. Citizen scientists receive feedback from the project.

There are many ways of giving feedback to volunteers, for example via social media, websites, maps, e-newsletters, celebratory events, blogs and meet-ups. Good feedback brings many benefits. It shares the outcomes of the science, justifies why people spent their time on the project, encourages repeat participation (Segal et al. 2015), explains the science research in more detail, and creates a personal connection between the citizen scientists and the project/research team (Rotman et al. 2012). It is also a way of showing participants that their contribution is recognised; an important feature for many (Rotman et al. 2012). There is evidence that feedback is a motivator for more participation (Singh et al. 2014), and there is great potential for project leaders to both speed up and improve the quality of their feedback, for example, by making it more personalised. Tools such as Natural Language Generation are being developed to automate the process of giving instant, personalised feedback (see, for example, Wal et al. 2016), helping project leaders to better manage large-scale communication with participants.

6. Citizen science is considered a research approach like any other, with limitations and biases that should be considered and controlled for.

Citizen-collected data are still sometimes criticised for being of lower accuracy, biased or of uncertain quality, which limits their use for many scientific purposes (see Williams et al. in this volume). However, in many cases, citizens gather data that are of equal quality to professionally collected data (Lewandowski & Specht 2015; Kosmala et al. 2016) and all data, including those collected by professional scientists, have an error rate or some degree of variation between observers. Citizen science project leaders have a responsibility to control, measure and report data quality and quality assurance procedures, to demonstrate the validity and reliability of the data (for discussion, see Williams et al. in this volume). Innovations in technology can support data validation and verification in environmental monitoring, for example Mazumdar et al., Volten et al., Schroer et al., all in this volume. A citizen science approach, however, will not be appropriate for all research questions and the 'Choosing and Using Citizen Science' guide supports researchers in making this assessment (Pocock et al. 2014b).

#### 7. Citizen science project data and metadata are made publicly available and where possible, results are published in an openaccess format.

Citizen science is an example of open science – a movement within the academia to make science research, data and outputs accessible to all. Whilst the principles of open science are welcomed within the citizen science community (both CSA and ECSA have working groups on open data; see Smallman et al. in this volume), in practice there is still a long way to go. This situation is not unique to the field of citizen science but is found across the sciences where time, resources, infrastructure and incentives are not always available to support open-data sharing (Tenopir et al. 2011). There have been many successes in the global sharing of citizen science data (for example Chandler et al. 2017) but still too few citizen science projects give participants direct access to the resulting dataset, and few project websites clearly describe if/how data will be shared with national and international databases. Cleaning, formatting and archiving data requires resources and infrastructure, and this vital step must be planned into project timescales and funding at the outset. The time lag between data collection and the publishing of results in academic journals remains a challenge for citizen science projects where participants may have to wait several years to see the 'final results' of the project. Researchers may also have to navigate data embargoes, a lack of institutional repositories for datasets and open-access publishing fees (Tenopir et al. 2011). However, new technologies and increased availability of repositories for data and publications are making this process ever easier, and the opportunities afforded by opening up citizen science data are significant. There may also be a role for citizen science, and citizen scientists, in the wider sharing of project outputs and findings within and beyond the research community using non-traditional approaches. This could include non-science outlets such as local newspapers, NGO/ association newsletters, special interest journals (e.g., gardening/angling magazines) or online communication and visualisation through story telling (Hecker et al. 'Stories' in this volume).

#### 8. Citizen scientists are acknowledged in project results and publications.

The contributions of citizen scientists are usually recognised throughout the lifetime of a project via project communications, the awarding of badges or certificates, events and many other routes. However, this does not always carry through to more academic project outputs. Acknowledging citizen scientists in project publications and other academic outputs is relatively easy to achieve but often overlooked. The volunteer hours donated to any given project are significant and should be celebrated! Appropriate levels of acknowledgement will vary by project and participant role, but – as a minimum – a generic thank you statement covering all volunteers should be included in publications and presentations wherever possible. Acknowledging large numbers of participants individually has been known, for example Lee et al. (2014) included 37,000 co-authors in their published paper on the EteRNA project, and whilst this is a rather extreme example, acknowledging individual participants may be appropriate where they have given significant input to a project (although data protection and ethical issues should be considered when disseminating personal information of participants). Data papers listing all contributors can also be published in data journals (e.g., http://www.forschungsdaten.org/index.php/Data \_Journals), which can be cited in subsequent analyses and publications.

9. Citizen science programmes are evaluated for their scientific output, data quality, participant experience and wider societal or policy impact.

Project evaluation is typically under-resourced, and as a result, some outcomes of citizen science projects are not fully identified, measured or reported (Ballard et al. 2017), despite potentially significant scientific, societal, policy, community and individual outcomes. Time constraints, a lack of established evaluation criteria (but see Kieslinger et al. in this volume) and a lack of understanding and confidence in how to conduct evaluation may prevent practitioners from collecting evidence of their successes and failures (for an example of this within environmental education, see West 2014). Training in evaluation methods and prioritisation of evaluation as part of the project delivery process would assist in collecting this evidence, as would greater interdisciplinary collaborations with academics in the social sciences and education fields to study the wider impacts and outcomes of participation in citizen science (see Mahr et al. in this volume). Research focused on the learning outcomes of citizen science is growing and some supporting resources for project leaders already exist, including practitioner guides (e.g., Phillips et al. 2014) and academic literature, in particular the new journal *Citizen Science: Theory and Practice* (Bonney, Cooper & Ballard 2016), which provides a route for project leaders to share tools and strategies for evaluation and learning research. Societal and policy impacts are equally as important as research and education outcomes, as citizen science projects can provide substantial input to policy formulation and implementation (Nascimento et al.; Owen & Parker, both this volume). Evaluation needs to consider this adequately even though such indirect impacts may at times be hard to assess. The citizen science community should therefore be encouraged to prioritise evaluation, including sharing details of less successful ventures, because the field cannot advance rapidly and effectively without self-reflection.

10. The leaders of citizen science projects take into consideration legal and ethical issues surrounding copyright, intellectual property, data-sharing agreements, confidentiality, attribution and the environmental impact of any activities.

Involving volunteers in any activity requires careful consideration for their health and well-being, their rights as individuals and an awareness of the power balance between volunteers and other parties involved in any given project. Resnik, Elliott and Miller (2015) provide a useful framework for addressing ethical issues in citizen science, and the CSA supports a working group on ethics. Many citizen science projects involve online activity, in which participants register for an online account, submit personal details about themselves, upload and share images and other content to which they hold the intellectual property, and collaborate with others. The gathering, processing and sharing of these types of data must be approached sensitively and with an understanding of the legal and ethical implications (see also Williams et al. in this volume). This may be a particularly sensitive issue in projects that deal with medical data (see Hoffman 2014 for an analysis of the benefits and risks). Scassa and Chung (2015b) provide a useful guide for considering intellectual property rights in citizen science projects and Bowser and Wiggins (2015) address privacy issues.

## Conclusion

At a time when citizen science is rapidly expanding but not yet mainstreamed within traditional research or policy processes, the Ten Principles provide governments, decision-makers, researchers and project leaders with a common set of core principles to consider when funding, developing, implementing or assessing citizen science projects/programmes. Imposition of a top-down set of standards for citizen science would be incongruent with its naturally bottom-up, flexible nature, but the Ten Principles may nonetheless serve the same aim of promoting excellence in science research, environmental protection, and public engagement and active involvement in the scientific and policy processes. Strategic national and international developments (see box 2.2 and Richter et al. in this volume) may provide examples and lead to action plans of how policymakers could make practical use of the Principles to drive widespread support for this approach.

Reviewing the Ten Principles of Citizen Science has highlighted the enormous amount of excellent work currently underway in this sector. The appetite for sharing good practice and learning lessons from others to maximise the benefits for science, policy, society and the individuals involved is inspiring. Widening participation, maximising and reporting data quality, and ensuring data and publications are made available in open-access formats remains challenging for this field. Innovative, nontraditional approaches will be required to move beyond the current state of the art. Later chapters of this book share some of these innovations and it is hoped that the reader finds these, together with the Ten Principles, inspiring and instructive.

In a rapidly moving field, best practice, too, will evolve and develop, and in time an 11th or 12th principle may be added to this current suite. In particular, developments in the fields of ethics, technologies and open data will strongly influence views of 'best' practice in coming years. Such innovations and advances in the field of citizen science, and the new challenges and opportunities they present, are to be welcomed.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank ECSA members and the wider community for their invaluable constructive feedback during the development of the Ten Principles, in particular the members of the ECSA working group for 'Sharing best practice and building capacity for citizen science'. We would also like to extend our gratitude to those members of the ECSA community who have translated the Ten Principles of Citizen Science.

# 3 Scientific impacts and innovations of citizen science

### Jennifer L. Shirk1 and Rick Bonney1

*1 Cornell Lab of Ornithology, US*

corresponding author email<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
In: Hecker, S., Haklay, M., Bowser, A., Makuch, Z., Vogel, J. & Bonn, A. 2018. *Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy*. UCL Press, London. https://doi.org/10.14324 /111.9781787352339

#### Highlights

# Introduction

From the Ten Principles of Citizen Science (Robinson et al., this volume), we can see that pursuing scientific outcomes is an integral element of citizen science. Citizen science can make distinct, novel and innovative contributions to scientific understandings. In doing so, citizen science opens both new opportunities and new appreciations for the ways that science can engage public insight and conduct policy-relevant research. This chapter focuses on the scientific impacts and innovations across the diverse field of citizen science. It highlights the general strengths of citizen science for data collection and processing capacity, public engagement and policy, then looks to scientific innovations emerging (or in some cases being rediscovered) from different disciplinary domains.

Although the history of citizen science often focuses on environmental sciences, a rich tradition of similar research approaches is found in disciplines as varied as astronomy, meteorology and public health. Citizen science is also rapidly expanding across research domains both within and beyond the sciences, as a collaborative approach to knowledge building (see also Mahr et al. in this volume). As the field of citizen science grows, its use continues to advance discovery, foster innovation and expand the boundaries of knowledge, which can in turn reveal new ways to connect research and public engagement for policy relevance, especially when taking the opportunity to explore and connect advancements across different disciplines.

#### Citizen science as a distinct means of research

Citizen science depends upon the thoughtful and meaningful engagement of the public in scientific investigations. At its core, citizen science draws upon the strengths of scientific traditions, employing systematic observations and/or enquiries to produce information that can be confirmed by others. What sets citizen science apart from other research approaches is that it rejects the notion that only credentialed and/or paid scientists can take part in, lead or shape how questions are asked, data are collected, results are interpreted or findings are used (see also Haklay in this volume; Novak in this volume for more on participatory approaches). In doing so, citizen science opens up research to public input and insights, and through the combination of engagement and rigorous research, it can broaden opportunities to inform and influence policy (Vann-Sander, Clifton & Harvey 2016).

*Scientific significance:* Public engagement has enabled the expansion of data collection and data processing capacities (see Wyler & Haklay in this volume). In a 2016 article on the game-changing nature of internetenabled citizen science, Watson and Floridi describe how citizen science projects can be designed to enhance the 'reliability, scalability, and connectivity' of information. By engaging tens, thousands, and even millions of participants, citizen science can offer both human and statistical power. With observers available around the clock and around the globe, citizen science can yield observations at unprecedented temporal and geographic scales and can produce data of sufficient quality for research (Kosmala et al. 2016; and see also Williams et al. in this volume) and for evidencebased decision-making (McKinley et al. 2017). Paired with powerful and novel computational and modelling techniques, this research approach can generate useful insights even when a dataset has known limitations, such as gaps in reporting times or species that are challenging to detect (Kelling et al. 2015).

While Watson and Floridi point to the role that technology plays in these enhancements, citizen science can be a powerful strategy for distributed collaboration without technology and also at much smaller scales (see also Peltola & Arpin in this volume; Danielsen et al. in this volume). Mobilising a committed corps of 20 volunteers in a watershed, for example, can vastly enhance the capacity for local monitoring to capture and document events of concern or to have confidence in the stability of a system. What is critical in research at every scale is not to have the most data, nor even the most precise data, but to have data of known quality and data that are fit to purpose (Ellett & Mayio 1990, 23; Vaughan et al. 2003).

The practice of citizen science has also brought new technologies, new data analysis techniques and new questions. Citizen science can make historic data available for analysis (e.g., Miller-Rushing & Primack 2008; Ellwood et al. 2016) and can lead to combined datasets accessible for wider use (Schmucki et al. 2016; see also Williams et al. in this volume). Perhaps most importantly, citizen science puts science in the hands of people who have insights and concerns previously not addressed by academia or agencies (Ottinger 2016). Citizen science thus provides avenues for interrogating topics that have both scientific and social relevance – a prime nexus for informing policy (McKinley et al. 2017), whether for the environment, health, public safety or any of an increasing number of topics.

*Public engagement:* Scientific advancements through citizen science have only been possible because of a willingness to think differently about who is involved in the research process, how those participants engage and what they bring to the research endeavour. Beyond engaging the public in the process of data collection, citizen science opens doors to broader knowledge exchange about the research in question (McKinley, Briggs & Bartuska 2013). Listening to participants' experiences can increase scientists' and policymakers' awareness of social concerns and influencing factors. This can be particularly important in complex settings such as conservation and medicine, where findings and implementations may be context-specific and where generalised, 'objective' knowledge may be less useful than scientific traditions generally assume. Research in all areas of exploration indicates that the more deeply participants are involved in the process of investigation – from shaping the research question to interpreting and acting on the results – the more profound the outcomes are for participant learning and for policy action (Danielsen, Burgess & Balmford 2005; Shirk et al. 2012; Stepenuck & Green 2015; and see Nascimento et al. and Smallman, both in this volume). Regardless of the depth of engagement, a significant motivator for many who choose to participate is an understanding that they are making a contribution, whether to broadening scientific understandings or to making a change in the world (Raddick et al. 2013; Alender 2015; Tsueng et al. 2016).

*Policy:* In an ideal world, policy decisions would be informed by evidence, but actionable evidence may not always be available, especially in cases calling for rapid or anticipatory responses (e.g., disasters, emerging diseases) or in complex systems (e.g., climate impacts, fisheries) (see, for example, Bower et al. 2017). Policy decisions are thus often made without evidence or with data not fit for purpose, and therefore against a background of uncertainty. Citizen science mobilises multiple observers and therefore has the potential to fill data gaps (Chandler et al. 2017) and to procure data in a timely manner (Vaughan et al. 2003). Careful design is required to ensure that the data collected are of appropriate and known quality for the purpose at hand (Shirk et al. 2012; Danielsen et al., 'A Multicountry Assessment', 2014; Kosmala et al. 2016). Citizen science research can also be targeted towards questions informed by policy needs or stakeholder concerns to yield the most relevant data (McKinley, Briggs & Bartuska 2013). Participants in such research, where stakes are high, have every incentive to ensure their data are defensible (Ottinger 2016). With all of these factors in mind, Danielsen et al., 'Linking Public Participation', (2014) suggest that citizen science may be an optimal strategy to address policy priorities, including indicators and outcomes set by highprofile treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.

## Citizen science innovations across disciplines

It is possible to see – and learn from – advancements in research impacts and innovations emerging in the different scientific disciplines where citizen science is employed. This section briefly looks at three different research domains – geophysical, biomedical and social science – to explore the scientific contributions of citizen science and the innovations that have enabled those outcomes. In doing so, it points to advances in public engagement and policy that can also be seen in these areas. It does not aspire to provide a comprehensive review, but rather to offer a glimpse into the practices and impacts in different disciplines, which may help expand thinking in the larger field.

*Geophysical/Geospatial:* Earth systems and earth observation research are yielding scientific advances through citizen science at both global and local scales, and advancing this work in part through innovative uses of remote sensing, social media and distributed sensors. An entire special issue of the journal *Remote Sensing* (Fritz & Fonte 2016) is devoted to sharing outcomes of citizen science including research into land cover (Laso Bayas et al. 2016), forest biomass (Molinier et al. 2016), water clarity (Busch et al. 2016) and the timing of lifecycle events (e.g., Elmore, Stylinski & Pradhan 2016) among other topics. Seismologists have refined methods to harvest streams of Tweets to improve real-time research into earthquake intensity (D'Auria & Convertito 2016) and range of perceptibility (Earle, Bowden & Guy 2012). Hydrologists have turned to social media as well, capturing photographs of flood events to estimate flow rate and depth (Le Coz et al. 2016). Geophysical scientists are also working in person with concerned communities to assess and monitor pollutants in soils and garden vegetables (Ramirez-Andreotta et al. 2013), air pollutants near gas drilling sites (Macey et al. 2014) and changes in water quantity and quality (Stepenuck & Green 2015).

These approaches to research can facilitate both rapid and collaborative policy responses to environmental change (Minson et al. 2015; Stepenuck & Green 2015). To this end, work in this domain is confronting and advancing procedures and measures that relate to issues of public engagement, such as around risk (Ramirez-Andreotta et al. 2013) and power and participation (Ramirez-Andreotta et al. 2015; Stepenuck & Green 2015).

*Biomedical:* In their systematic review of crowdsourced research in medical fields, Ranard et al. (2014) found papers in hematology, radiology, genomics, molecular biology and more, which describe citizen science strategies including problem-solving and the distributed surveillance of symptoms or treatment options. Innovations in online platforms for problem-solving, such as FoldIt and Zooniverse, have engaged communities of gamers-turned-analysts to advance cancer research, protein mapping, DNA sequencing and neurobiology (Kawrykow et al. 2012; Peplow 2016). What Ranard et al. label 'surveillance systems' include strategies designed to elicit patient-contributed datasets, whether through project-specific portals or social media channels, which are sufficient to explore trends in such areas as disease outbreak (Smolinski et al. 2015), drug reactions (Salathé 2016) and risk factors for disease transmission (Garcia-Martí et al. 2016). Technologies developed for the Mark2Cure project, for example, engage volunteers in mining peer-reviewed journals to identify, annotate and curate relevant papers out of a broad literature with overlapping acronyms (Tsueng et al. 2016). Innovations are not all technological – community-based participatory research (CBPR), although far from new, continues to demonstrate the significance of collaborative learning where patients, patient advocates, health workers or at-risk communities help define research goals and processes (Wallerstein & Duran 2006). Innovations in CBPR include exploring opportunities for collaborative research to organise and mobilise concerned communities to take action around their health concerns (Cohen et al. 2016), and opening up avenues for qualitative methodologies in collaborative health research (Clark & Ventres 2016).

Policy implications in this domain may most easily be seen in CBPR work, where partnerships can help confront inequities in biomedical research and services (Israel et al. 2001) and are at times even specifically driven and directed by policy concerns (Themba & Minkler 2003). The fine line between researcher and subject in citizen science in the biomedical sphere has led to an extensive conversation around research ethics (del Savio, Buyx & Prainsack 2015; Kolman 2016; Vayena & Tasioulas 2016; Woolley et al. 2016). Work in this discipline has also helped confront and advance thinking on issues including privacy (Del Savio, Buyx & Prainsack 2015); patients' rights (Woolley et al. 2016); and even the concept of patient/public 'right to science' (Vayena & Tasioulas 2016).

*Social science/humanities:* Although it may be less common to think of social science and humanities research in relationship to citizen science, many of the same techniques are being employed and advanced to understand archaeology, literature, history and social dynamics. In a review of crowdsourced digital humanities research, Terras (2016) describes ways in which text and image analysis, transcription and annotation are helping to research, archive and make publicly available aspects of cultural heritage that might otherwise remain locked in museum basements or lost to time (as in the case of events and ephemeral art). Archaeologist Parcak (2015) highlights the opportunities for technology – specifically remote sensing – to document geopolitical events and conduct social and behavioural research via public access to satellite images and open mapping platforms. She is pioneering the use of aerial imagery to engage the public in identifying promising sites for archaeological exploration (Gewin 2016). Satellite observations can also facilitate monitoring and research of social conflict, human rights violations and the extent and impact of environmental disasters (Zastrow 2014; Notley & Webb-Gannon 2016). Innovative technology use is also enabling human-centred research, including studies of geographic trends of sexual behaviour (Davis et al. 2016) and correlating patterns of physical exercise with barriers to accessing outdoor spaces (Rosas et al. 2016).

Some projects and platforms in this domain are designed to have clear short- or long-term policy implications, such as to facilitate dialogue and transparency (Terras 2016) or direct action and advocacy (Rosas et al. 2016). Technology can improve understanding and management of issues of privacy (Davis et al. 2016), and can also raise concerns about equity in social research (Notley & Webb-Gannon 2016). Work with direct social implications reminds us that 'the crowd' (which includes scientists, per Parcak 2015) has interests and a stake in outcomes, and therefore scholars in this domain are working to deepen understandings of how politics and objectivity are approached in relation to research and public engagement (Notley & Webb-Gannon 2016).

#### Transferring innovations to advance work across disciplines

The development of citizen science in diverse disciplinary contexts has implications for the larger field. While some insights and innovations are disciplinary-, context- or project-specific, many may be transferrable to other settings. Opportunities are plentiful for advancing work by transferring innovations, and examples can be seen in terms of technology, computational strategies, engagement approaches and the practice of research itself (for the practical implications, see also Williams et al. in this volume).

*Technology transfer:* The rapid diversification of projects on the Zooniverse platform is a primary example of technology transfer. This platform for digital image classification, designed for public processing of astronomical images, is now employed for marine science, climatology, cancer research and more (see, for example, Tinati et al. 2015). Terras (2015) points to Zooniverse as a model platform for technologies developed to enable cultural heritage research. Hardware technologies are also transferable. Sensors in smartphones, smart watches and elsewhere allow data to be captured and shared in almost any setting (for example, a phone camera can document both species sightings and cosmic ray strikes) – a 2016 *Nature* article by Cartwright offers cross-cutting advice for scientists in any discipline who are looking to leverage these tools. Where hardware tools are not available or accessible, participants have built them – tools developed by do-it-yourself community scientists to enable community-based monitoring are now being adopted by professional researchers because of their quality and affordability (Dosemagen 2017, personal communication; and see also Volten et al. in this volume). The US Forest Service also notes that public engagement in research helps with technology transfer to private landowners/resource managers otherwise left behind as the industry rapidly advances (McKinley, Briggs & Bartuska 2013).