Co-creation in practice: from bottom up to top down

Abstract

Co-created Citizen Science projects are considered to enhance active, inclusive, and wide participation, and significantly improve the quality of public participation. However, fully co-created projects are still rare in CS, where many projects aim primarily at overcoming the capacity of current research structures and involve participants only for the collection, and sometimes the analysis, of large-scale data. In addition, in many research areas professional researchers are used to having full control of their methodology and processes; in the majority of cases, they consider CS late in the process, when they already have a clear and well-defined idea of their research plans and needs, with little or no space left for the contribution of citizens. How can the Citizen Science community of practitioners better encourage and support real co-creation?

Authors 3

1. Rosy Mondardini

   University of Zurich · ETH Zurich · University of Southern Denmark

   Affiliation as printed

   Citizen Science Center Zurich University of Zurich and

   Science Knowledge Center at Southern Denmark University

   Citizen Science Center Zurich University of Zurich and ETH Zurich Kurvenstrasse 17, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland

2. Margaret M. Gold Aachen LEI • Citizen Science Lab Rapenburg 70

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University | LEI • Citizen Science Lab Rapenburg 70 , 2311 EZ Leiden , The Netherlands

   Leiden University | LEI • Citizen Science Lab Rapenburg 70, 2311 EZ Leiden, The Netherlands

3. Thomas Kaarsted

   University of Southern Denmark

   Affiliation as printed

   University of Southern Denmark Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark