Citizen Science NOW: Helping Citizens Shape Their Own Research

What enables people to bring their own questions to a university and become active partners in research? The University of Twente explored this question through Citizen Science NOW.

Citizen science depends on people having the confidence, knowledge and opportunities to contribute. Citizen Science NOW (Network, transfOrm, groW) examined how education could support broader participation and help citizens take a more active role in research addressing local and regional challenges.

The University of Twente contributed by designing and conducting interviews with citizen scientists, researchers and project facilitators. These explored the competencies people need and the different roles they take in collaborative research. The findings contributed to the project’s needs assessment and future foresight report. UT’s responsibilities also included developing three learning resources with its academic partners to support active participation in citizen science. Read UT’s project overview.

An important question emerged from this work: how can citizens take the initiative and involve universities in the challenges that matter to them? The UT team explored this perspective in its contribution to the 2023 Citizen Science for Health conference, focusing on the competencies needed for more proactive participation. Explore “Science Citizenship: The Case of Citizen Science NOW”.

For EPiCS, this offers a useful starting point for connecting citizen science with Research Service-Learning. Students and researchers need to learn how to listen, discuss priorities and work with people whose expertise comes from everyday experience. Community participants also need space to identify what they want to learn and how they would like to contribute.

A practical way to apply this perspective is to begin a collaboration by discussing three questions: What matters to this community? What knowledge does each participant bring? What support would help everyone contribute?

These questions can guide the design of learning activities and public discussions. They also remind us that preparing people for participation is part of the research itself. Through its work on engagement and participant preparation, UT can bring this perspective into EPiCS: learning should help people shape the collaboration as well as take part in it.