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Short Abstract

Since the 2010s, networks and platforms have connected citizen science projects, promoting public engagement, collaboration, advocacy, and project support. An ECSA working group analysed experiences from various countries to address challenges and enhance citizen science capacity building.

Abstract

Since the early 2010s, several national networks and platforms have been established to connect different citizen science projects in their respective countries, generally across scientific disciplines. These networks, often with associated online platforms, pursue various goals, such as: (1) displaying citizen science projects to an interested public; (2) connecting citizen science actors to foster innovation and learning; (3) advocating and lobbying for citizen science in their respective contexts; as well as (4) supporting the creation of citizen science projects or to improve small “local” projects by facilitating a cooperation with professional researchers. In the ECSA working group, “Citizen Science Networks”, we combine the knowledge and experience in governing networks and platforms from initiatives in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovenia, as well as from the international platforms EU-Citizen.Science, SciStarter and VERA.

In a series of online workshops, the working group members shared their experiences in different areas of coordinating a citizen science network/platform. These areas of experience involve the aims, setup, activities, funding, target groups and communication of citizen science networks and/or platforms, as well as data collected in such networks and/or platforms.

The aim was to inform the citizen science community about the challenges or questions faced in developing citizen science networks in different countries. In our contribution, we want to present a report that summarises the findings of our collaborative endeavour and discusses these results in the context of citizen science capacity building.