Policy masterclasses and recommendations to mainstream citizen science

In 2021, ACTION organized six masterclasses in five countries (Netherlands, Norway, Spain/Barcelona, the UK, Italy and one overarching), each one aimed at the interaction of citizen science with policy. Overall, more than a hundred people participated in our country masterclasses, more than 75 in our final overarching one, all people that are interested in or related to the connection of citizen science with policy. They ranged from policymakers to policy workers, citizen science actors, and scientists.

In an iterative and co-creation process with these participants, we have formulated recommendations to mainstream citizen science. They are recommendations to help citizen science to live up to its potential to bridge science, society, and policy and to support governments and administrations to make sensible policies in relation to grand societal challenges, ranging from biodiversity loss to bad air quality and structural inequalities. Moreover, in the publication on the recommendations you can also find benefits and challenges to mainstream citizen science, especially in policy.

Publication: You can find the publication here.
Recording & slides:  Recording of the overarching masterclass and its presentation by Igno Notermans.

Dates: The masterclass in the Netherlands took place on 13th of April, followed by Norway on May 20th, the United Kingdom on June 24th and Spain on 28th September, Italy on 12 November 2021, and the overarching one on 25 November 2021.

Impression from the masterclass in Barcelona on 28 September 2021

Policy masterclasses to support mainstreaming of Citizen Science

In 2021, the ACTION project will hold six masterclasses for policymakers and public servants on how they can better support citizen science initiatives. We will explore how they can incorporate citizen science in making their countries and cities a more healthy, sustainable and attractive place to live. This can include the creation of trust in, financial funding for, and knowledge about citizen science. It can also be the promotion of partnerships and platforms between government decision-makers and citizen science associations and organisations.

The masterclasses will happen in Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and Norway and are targeted at local, regional and national policymakers and public servants. They will be organised together with local citizen science projects within each of the countries in question.

We will build upon insights from the ongoing impact assessments as well as insights from the toolkit development. The input and results from the masterclasses will lead to a policy brief on citizen science mainstreaming.

More information will follow as soon as the topics and dates of the masterclasses will be defined.