How can we make citizen science to live up to its potential to bridge science, society, and policy? How can it help our governments and administrations to make sensible policies in relation to grand societal challenges, ranging from biodiversity loss to bad air quality and structural inequalities? In other words, how can we make citizen science mainstream?
Our publication on recommendations to mainstream citizen science answers this question in an actionable way. It targets policymakers, policy workers, citizen science actors, scientists, or all who are interested in or related to the connection of citizen science with policy. The same people we have worked with, more than a hundred, to iteratively co-create these recommendations in and around six masterclasses in five European countries: Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain/Barcelona & the United Kingdom.
In the publication we list the recommendations for each of these countries but start with the general recommendations to mainstream citizen science. Those are based on the themes that emerged from the recommendations across those five countries, for example around platforms and networks for exchange, data, and funding. While these topics might not be new to the citizen science community, they might be for relative outsiders. The recommendations provide an agenda to accelerate the uptake of citizen science and make it mainstream.
You can find the recommendations here: Recommendations to mainstream citizen science in policy.