Abstract
Over the past decade, citizen science has experienced growth and popularity as a scientific practice and as a new form of stakeholder engagement and public participation in science or in the generation of new knowledge. One of the key requirements for realising the potential of citizen science is evidence and demonstration of its impact and value. Yet the actual changes resulting from citizen science interventions are often assumed, ignored or speculated about. Based on a systematic review of 77 publications, combined with empirical insights from 10 past and ongoing projects in the field of citizen science, this paper presents guidelines for a consolidated Citizen Science Impact Assessment framework to help overcome the dispersion of approaches in assessing citizen science impacts; this comprehensive framework enhances the ease and consistency with which impacts can be captured, as well as the comparability of evolving results across projects. Our review is framed according to five distinct, yet interlinked, impact domains (society, economy, environment, science and technology, and governance). Existing citizen science impact assessment approaches provide assessment guidelines unevenly across the five impact domains, and with only a small number providing concrete indicator-level conceptualisations. The analysis of the results generates a number of salient insights which we combine in a set of guiding principles for a consolidated impact assessment framework for citizen science initiatives. These guiding principles pertain to the purpose of citizen science impact assessments, the conceptualisation of data collection methods and information sources, the distinction between relative versus absolute impact, the comparison of impact assessment results across citizen science projects, and the incremental refinement of the organising framework over time.
Highlights
Over the past decade, citizen science has experienced growth and popularity—both as a scientific practice, and as an emerging form of stakeholder engagement and public participation in the generation of scientific knowledge—due to, among other things, the pervasive diffusion of information and communication technologies (Silvertown 2009; Bonney et al 2009a, 2014)
We present the results of the systematic literature review and the findings from the empirical research into current impact assessment practices of citizen science projects
This paper has presented a systematic review of impact assessment methods for citizen science, the resulting insights of which provide guidance for a consolidated citizen science impact assessment framework
Summary
Citizen science has experienced growth and popularity—both as a scientific practice, and as an emerging form of stakeholder engagement and public participation in the generation of scientific knowledge—due to, among other things, the pervasive diffusion of information and communication technologies (Silvertown 2009; Bonney et al 2009a, 2014). Its popularity as a novel form of stakeholder engagement and public participation in science stems from the increased realisation of its potential for jointly identifying and addressing common challenges of the twenty-first century (Fritz et al 2019). We consider citizen science as a multifaceted phenomenon, consisting of collaborative data and knowledge generation among citizens, scientists and, in some case, decision makers, for a range of purposes, consisting of different dimensions (thematic, geographical, temporal, socio-political, scientific, technological and economic) which together influence the nature, remit, value and impact of any given citizen science initiative. Limited resources (funds and expertise) and mismatches in the timing of impact assessments and impact manifestations quite often hinder a thorough assessment of the impacts of citizen science projects
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
