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Citizen ScienceCitizen Science

What is citizen science? 

Citizen science is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and scientific institutions”. In fact, there are different definitions and interpretations of the term in the literature, which often depend on the context. Citizen science can differ across research fields and in terms of design processes, levels of participation and engagement practices. It includes top-down researcher-driven approaches and more bottom-up, community-driven practices.

Broadly speaking, citizen science is “an ‘umbrella’ term that describes a variety of ways in which the public participates in science, with two main characteristics in common: (1) citizens are actively involved in research, in partnership or collaboration with scientists or professionals; and (2) there is a genuine outcome, such as new scientific knowledge, conservation action or policy change” (European Citizen Science Association (ECSA)). In order to ensure good practices, the ECSA proposes 10 principles of what constitutes good citizen science. The statement was developed by the ‘Sharing best practice and building capacity’ working group of the European Citizen Science Association, led by the Natural History Museum London with input from many of the Association’s members.

The term “citizens” has a broad meaning in this context and refers to people with a varied range of knowledge and skills who may or may not have a formal scientific education. It stands in contrast to “scientists”, who have received a formal academic education in the specific field of research of the citizen science project and who work in academia or other research institutions.  

There are several ways to engage citizens in citizen science projects: from contributory projects, in which participants primarily collect or analyse data, to co-created projects, in which scientists and participants or communities work together in partnership (at least some of the volunteer participants are involved in most or all of the stages of the scientific process). The level of engagement depends on the nature and objectives of the research project, and all levels of engagement are equally valid. 
 

Why citizen science? 

In the last few years, an increasing number of projects in a variety of disciplines and fields have adopted citizen science approaches. Since there is a variety of ways of engaging citizens in a research project through different channels or formats, such as videogames, questionnaires, co-creations, apps…, non-scientists can easily be included in the different stages of the research process. The adoption of citizen science is also strongly supported by several funding bodies and is acknowledged as a powerful tool for achieving lasting societal impact and promoting excellent research. For example, the Horizon Europe framework programme indicates citizen science as an important practice in the Open Science toolkit and encourages co-design and co-creation approaches in all projects.
 

How citizen science enables open science  

Both citizen science and open science facilitate knowledge transfer between science and society to stimulate innovation. On one side, citizen participation in science leads to increased engagement and scientific literacy; on the other, citizen science and open science, in which different kinds of knowledge and expertise contribute to shaping research topics that would be otherwise impossible, can empower researchers to address societal needs better.

Citizen science at the CRG 

Citizen science is an emerging and exciting research methodology that can be adapted and applied to the specific needs of a scientific project. the CRG provides the following support resources to drive its adoption:

Citizen Science Contact Point

The CRG Citizen Science Contact Point provides information and resources about citizen science to CRG scientists interested in this methodology, from related internal and external webpages and documents to information on calls for funding and key actors to contact.

More specifically, the CRG Citizen Science Contact Point carries out the following functions:

  • Provide information and resources of interest about the concept of citizen science and its requirements as a research methodology.
  • Provide information about the support and resources offered by the CRG to adopt citizen science in research projects.
  • Provide information about citizen science-related calls for funding at national and European level.
  • Suggest key actors to contact in order to start to build the research proposal using a citizen science approach, ranging from scientific project managers and grants specialists through to external stakeholders.

The mission of the CRG Citizen Science Contact Point is to provide general information and contacts about citizen science to any researcher interested in developing a project that includes a citizen science dimension. The Contact Point will also provide general guidance for exploring the suitability and potential of a research project to involve citizens or other relevant stakeholders.

You can get in touch with the CRG Citizen Science Contact Point, Carmen Melatti, by sending an email to citizenscience@crg.eu  

Guidelines

The CRG Citizen Science Guide is intended to provide guidance and support to CRG researchers and research managers who are considering using a citizen science approach in a research project. They help to decide whether citizen science is likely to be useful, inform about critical aspects, offer tips for the success of the project and help to choose the most appropriate type of citizen science approach for the specific case, since not every approach is suitable for all situations.

You can view the CRG Citizen Science Guide in the 'Policies & Guidelines' section of the Intranet, link to the Guide here.

Evaluation of research

Citizen science has an important impact in and on society: it affords the researcher greater recognition, it empowers society, it promotes the diversification of science and research, it builds trust in science, and it supports evidence-based policies. Thus, the CRG plans to include the recognition of citizen science’s (societal) impact in its internal evaluation processes.
 

Previous citizen science projects at the CRG

To date, the CRG has backed a short, albeit successful, series of citizen science campaigns. We have designed, developed and implemented two stand-out projects: the Genigma mobile game app and the mouth microbiome project Stick out your tongue. 

Genigma is a mobile game app that aims to map the genome of a cancer line in a collaborative way. Co-created with citizens, this project is an experiment within the EU-funded project ORION Open Science. It has introduced citizen science concepts to researchers that wanted to explore this methodology for the first time, guided by a citizen science facilitator in all the project phases.

The objective of the game is to build reference maps to understand the parts of the human genome that play a fundamental role in the growth and development of cancer. The game’s development was open for collaboration from its inception and began with three co-creation events to lay the project’s foundations, followed by a testing phase. Two years before the game went live, more than 500 people took part in developing it. Besides the scientific results that will be obtained thanks to the game, the interactions with different people and the project team members benefitted greatly from the use of participatory methodologies, giving them the opportunity to venture out of their comfort zone. The app was released in January 2022 and closed in October 2022, and almost 700,000 data items were amassed in order to map the breast cancer genome.

Stick out your tongue is a different approach to citizen science, involving the study of the mouth’s microbiome and its possible relationship with our environmental characteristics and lifestyle. The project ran for four years (2015-2018) and enjoyed enormous reach all over Spain, with more than 7,000 participants including students and patients. The project yielded four research papers, with a fifth currently under review. All the participants received a snapshot of their microbiome composition and a brief outline of the project’s general findings. Citizens’ contributions to the hypothesis were key to the project’s success, as they provided new ideas that had not occurred to scientists. The project resulted in the co-creation and co-development of a game based on the results . This allowed us to share the results with a larger and more diverse audience in a different format. The project was an initiative of the CRG in collaboration with the "la Caixa" Foundation.
 

Further information and links of interest

References 

 https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10043574/1/DITOs-PolicyBrief-Citizen%20Science%20and%20Open%20Science.pdf