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Short Abstract

The SDG Olympiad, launched in 2024, is inspired by experimentation in managing student-driven innovation through activities like hackathons and summer schools, with citizen science as a common approach. This paper describes lessons learned and outlines a future roadmap for the SDG Olympiad.

Abstract

Citizen science can be a powerful engine for student-driven innovation when paired with a structured methodology and embedded in a global competition framework. This paper explores innovation management for citizen science through the SDG Olympiad, an international challenge that brings together interdisciplinary student teams from over a dozen universities on four continents. to create solutions based on citizen-generated data for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The paper draws on examples of student-led projects developed during SDG Summer Schools, a format initiated in Geneva in 2016 and now used in several European and African universities, and SDG Open Hack events launched in Beijing in 2019 and currently attracting thousands of students in China and South-East Asia. The paper examines how citizen science methods can be systematically introduced to students to produce scalable social and technological innovations.

Central to this approach is the GEAR methodology pioneered in the European Crowd4SDG project, which involves a four-phase framework: Gather challenges, Evaluate prototypes, Accelerate projects, and Refine methodologies. In the Gather phase, international organizations and NGOs help identify sustainability challenges that can benefit from citizen-generated open data. The Evaluate phase emphasizes iterative design and testing of practical prototypes, working with local stakeholders. Acceleration involves connecting student teams with partners and investors, at both the local and global levels. Key to the evolution of the SDG Olympiad has been a constant effort to Refine the methodologies used to generate student projects.

The paper provides several concrete examples of projects that are now generating useful data for the SDGs and provides a future roadmap for how hierarchically structured innovation management, using the GEAR methodology and culminating in a global SDG Olympiad event, can spread knowledge of citizen science to universities worldwide and nurture student-driven research and entrepreneurship that directly contribute to achieving the SDGs.