Short abstract:

Keywords: Scientific Third sector - Organisations - Citizen science - Invisibility - Power

Long abstract:

In the context of sustainable societal and environmental transitions, citizen science (CS) has a key role to play as it contributes to the democratization of innovation. Citizen science promotes intermediation between the scientific third sector (Ottolini, 2020, Lhoste and Sardin 2024) and academic organisations (Alliss 2017, Houllier and al. 2017). We postulate that 1/ such cooperation is a robust configuration for the production of actionable knowledge 2/ methods and skills tested in previous CS experiences justify an attempt to generalise some of them 3/ CS allows the endogenous development of the network.

In this communication we discuss the results of a multi-stakeholder research project called EQUIPACT. The aim of this project is to improve the quality and societal impact of CS. The consortium consists of eight NGO’s, two public laboratories, three public research institutes, one museum and one private laboratory. We introduce and discuss the notion of the scientific third sector in relation to commonly used notions of civil society and non-governmental organisations. This leads to an exploration of the common characteristics and trajectories of project member organisations and individuals involved in citizen science mediation to date. Our material consists of interviews (n=20), archivals and engagement observations.