Send message to Contributor

Short Abstract

Canada’s citizen science ecosystem is active but fragmented across federal, provincial, territorial, and Indigenous contexts. European national strategies and regional coordination by ECSA provides a useful model for Canadian institutions to create a Canadian Citizen Science Association.

Abstract

This paper examines what Canada can learn from European national and regional CS strategies to build a federated Canadian Citizen Science Association (CCSA) that respects jurisdictional and cultural diversity while enabling coordination, training, and policy impact.

The interactions between the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) and National Programs like Schweiz Forscht demonstrate how national initiatives help connect research institutions and local communities without imposing uniformity, and how these national initiatives in turn help integrate citizen science at a European level into education, policy, and innovation at a continental scale, with ECSA play a key role in this process.

Canada already hosts world-class examples of citizen science like the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, which foster environmental stewardship through hands-on data collection. In the Arctic, the project SmartICE exemplifies Indigenous-led, community-owned innovation combining local knowledge with technology.

However, these initiatives remain disconnected. A federated CCSA could link them through provincial and territorial chapters, complemented by Indigenous-led circles following OCAP and CARE principles. A light national secretariat could coordinate:

- a bilingual project registry interoperable with EU-Citizen.Science;

- open training and certification modules;

- a data and ethics framework aligning FAIR and Indigenous standards;

- shared impact metrics.

Collaboration with European counterparts could focus on joint training, data governance, and twinned regional projects (e.g., Montreal–Barcelona on urban biodiversity, Vancouver–Flanders on coastal plastics).

A federated CCSA, inspired by Europe’s multi-level governance yet rooted in Canada’s constitutional and cultural realities, would strengthen national collaboration, enhance international visibility, and ensure citizen science contributes meaningfully to research, education, and sustainable development.