Supporting Citizen Science in Research Performing Organisations: which institutional changes can facilitate this process and how can they be monitored?

Abstract

Citizen Science can contribute to the transformation and enrichment of existing research and innovation processes. Nevertheless, we see big differences in the institutional support of citizen science in research performing organizations (RPOs), like universities. Which institutional measures lead to a better and more effective involvement of citizens in research and innovation processes and how can these be supported? TIME4CS - a Horizon 2020 project - is dedicated to this question and examines both social and organizational aspects of implementing support for citizen science. The project has defined four intervention areas that, alone or in combination, can stimulate the necessary institutional changes to foster public engagement in R&I activities. For each intervention area, a set of grounding actions are defined and considered as seeds to be sown, paving the way to institutional changes within research institutions. To find out if this works in very different contexts, the project collaborates with four RPOs operating in different academic contexts, research fields and geographical locations. These institutions implement the grounding actions and share their experiences throughout the evaluation process. Lessons learned from these practical implementations after the first 18 project months were presented at the 7th Austrian Citizen Science Conference and show that starting from very different points the four RPOs identified some common key challenges and potential solutions.