Mapping the State of the Art to Envision the Future of Large-Scale Citizen Science Projects: An Interpretive Review

Abstract

Citizen science, i.e. citizens’ involvement in research activities, is achieving an increasing re-levance across disparate scientific domains. However, literature is not consistent in arguing citizen science’s attributes and implications when large-scale projects are concerned. The paper systematizes extant scientific knowledge in this field and identifies avenues for further deve-lopments through a bibliometric analysis and an interpretive review. Various approaches to citizen science are implemented to engage citizens in scientific research. They can be located in a continuum composed of two extremes: a contributory approach, which serves research institutions’ needs, and an open science approach, which focuses on citizens’ active participation in knowledge co-creation. Although contributory citizen science paves the way for participatory science, it falls short in empowering citizens, which is central in the open science approach. Interventions aimed at enabling citizens to have an active role in co-creating knowledge in a perspective of science democratization are key to overcoming the understanding of citizen science as a low-cost model of scientific research and to boost the transition towards an open science approach.