How policy can support citizen science
Citizen science is a powerful catalyst for change – not only generating crucial data, but also inspiring behaviour change and encouraging people to advocate for change. The right structures and support for citizen science has the potential to increase both societal and policy impact.
Citizen science is defined as “work undertaken by civic educators together with citizen communities to advance science, foster a broad scientific mentality, and/or encourage democratic engagement”. Put simply, it’s science by the people, for the people.
Actively involving non-scientists in the scientific research process can take many forms – defining a research question, collecting and analysing data, or disseminating the results of a study – across a broad range of topics. From the arts to medicine, history to geology, volunteers have supported scientists to classify stereographs in museums, detect dental disease and find black holes.
Climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss have combined to create a triple planetary crisis so there is no greater contribution made by citizen science than to environmental science and ecology.
In the environmental sector, citizen science has a key role to play. Amongst many other initiatives, citizen science can be used to assess the health of soil, to investigate the socio-environmental benefits of urban forests – including increased biodiversity, improved carbon capture, flood mitigation and thermal comfort - and to monitor and advocate for the health of freshwater. These initiatives can be delivered across a wide geographic area and at a scale that would be nearly impossible without the activation of volunteer citizen scientists.
Campaigns such as the Rivers Trust Big River Watch and Earthwatch Europe’s Great UK WaterBlitz encourage individuals and communities to engage with their local freshwater bodies, and – in the case of the latter – to gather accurate, and timely information on water conditions, providing valuable insights that complement official monitoring efforts.
Despite its demonstrable ability to contribute to research, particularly by providing robust datasets towards environmental monitoring, citizen science faces multiple challenges. The engagement, motivation and retention of citizens is resource-intensive, and citizen science has not been historically well funded. As UKRI notes, “Involving the public as researchers can be transformational for all involved, but it requires an R&I system that properly supports and values it”.
Despite its proven value, citizen science data often faces resistance from governments and regulatory bodies. Even though citizen science methods are frequently being validated by laboratory scientists,, policymakers may hesitate to integrate citizen science into their monitoring frameworks. This reluctance can hinder the impact of citizen science initiatives, frustrating both participants and researchers.
By providing more financial opportunities, funding policy could ease many of the problems citizen science faces around volunteer recruitment, engagement and retention; enabling more projects to collect more data about the world around us.
What is done with that data is the next important step.
In countries such as Sierra Leone and Zambia, for example, water quality data collected through the citizen science project FreshWater Watch has been used in official reporting towards the Sustainable Development Goal indicator 6.3.2.
This is how policy can fundamentally support citizen science: recognising it as a legitimate scientific approach and integrating its findings into official monitoring and reporting.
In return, citizen science can support the promotion, monitoring and even – where appropriate – the enforcement of policy, by educating individuals, engaging communities, and empowering people to advocate for the planet.
Citizen scientists are capable of generating extensive, accurate, and timely information at local, national and even global levels. Citizen science has the power to create data for positive environmental change. With the right policy support, the impact of citizen science will multiply – for people, for science and for the environment.
Dr Sasha Woods is the Director of Science and Policy at environmental charity Earthwatch Europe. She leads the Science and Policy team at Earthwatch, ensuring the organisation’s work is scientifically rigorous and solutions focused.
