Inspiring new directions in citizen-based science
Citizen science initiatives are under way across the world, from Europe to Africa, the Americas to Asia. While these projects can make significant contributions to society, they often do so while working in a vacuum. Much more could be achieved if citizen scientists, scientists and other key stakeholders pooled their experiences and shared their knowledge to create research and projects that directly respond to the needs of communities. This is exactly the thinking behind the EU-funded InSPIRES (Ingenious Science shops to promote Participatory Innovation, Research and Equity in Science) project. “Our goal was to connect social concerns and demands with researchers to co-create research projects with the potential to transform knowledge into action, reduce inequalities, and promote self-determination and a better society,” says Anne-Sophie Gresle, InSPIRES project coordinator.
Supporting numerous science shops
At the heart of the project is the science shop, an intermediation structure between science and society that provides independent, community-based research addressing concerns of civil society. “To start, we brought together practitioners and experts from Europe and beyond to co-design, jointly pilot and implement innovative models for science shops,” explains Gresle. “We then looked to support these participatory projects and evaluate their impact on the different groups involved.” In total, InSPIRES provided support to 123 science shops working in Bolivia, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Tunisia. The project also funded six more projects through the organisation of a competitive call. The work these projects did was very diverse. For example, a project in Hungary investigated how the use of trauma-informed yoga classes can benefit the well-being of various disadvantaged groups. In France, another project explored how urban planning decisions can lead to the gentrification of neighbourhoods. A full list of the initiatives that InSPIRES supported is available online. Even though each of these projects touched on different topics and took place in different countries, each was born out of a concern expressed by a civil society organisation. “The level of participation for each project was adapted according to civil society expectations and needs,” notes Gresle. “Furthermore, all projects communicated their research results back to the relevant civil society organisation, which is a mandatory component within the science shop mechanism.”
The InSPIRES Open Platform
Information from all the different projects was then used to build the InSPIRES Open Platform, an online collaborative and crowdsourced database featuring science shops and citizen science initiatives. “The Open Platform is where we showcase the projects and their results,” adds Gresle. “It’s a community where actors can tell stories of inspiring experiences, learn together and grasp the real impact of their work.” According to Gresle, the platform offers an intuitive and easy monitoring and evaluation tool that projects can use to measure their impact. All a project has to do is enter their information and ask participants to answer simple questionnaires. The tool then automatically analyses the data and produces reports in real time. As its name suggests, the InSPIRES project was all about inspiring new directions in citizen-based science. “This work has reinforced our conviction in the need to permeate science with participatory processes,” concludes Gresle. “By providing ongoing support to the global science community, enhancing mutual learning by sharing experiences, and promoting best practices in citizen science, the InSPIRES Open Platform is perfectly placed to do exactly that.”
Keywords
InSPIRES, citizen-based science, science, citizen science, citizen scientists, co-create, science shop