Impact assessment of citizen science: state of the art and guiding principles for a consolidated approach

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorWehn, Uta
dc.contributor.authorGharesifard, Mohammad
dc.contributor.authorCeccaroni, Luigi
dc.contributor.authorJoyce, Hannah
dc.contributor.authorAjates, Raquel
dc.contributor.authorWoods, Sasha
dc.contributor.authorBilbao, Ane
dc.contributor.authorParkinson, Stephen
dc.contributor.authorGold, Margaret
dc.contributor.authorWheatland, Jonathan
dc.date.accessioned2021-08-10T10:19:04Z
dc.date.available2021-08-10T10:19:04Z
dc.date.issued2021-05-12
dc.description.abstractOver the past decade, citizen science has experienced growth and popularity as a scientific practice and as a new form of stakeholder engagement and public participation in science or in the generation of new knowledge. One of the key requirements for realising the potential of citizen science is evidence and demonstration of its impact and value. Yet the actual changes resulting from citizen science interventions are often assumed, ignored or speculated about. Based on a systematic review of 77 publications, combined with empirical insights from 10 past and ongoing projects in the field of citizen science, this paper presents guidelines for a consolidated Citizen Science Impact Assessment framework to help overcome the dispersion of approaches in assessing citizen science impacts; this comprehensive framework enhances the ease and consistency with which impacts can be captured, as well as the comparability of evolving results across projects. Our review is framed according to five distinct, yet interlinked, impact domains (society, economy, environment, science and technology, and governance). Existing citizen science impact assessment approaches provide assessment guidelines unevenly across the five impact domains, and with only a small number providing concrete indicator-level conceptualisations. The analysis of the results generates a number of salient insights which we combine in a set of guiding principles for a consolidated impact assessment framework for citizen science initiatives. These guiding principles pertain to the purpose of citizen science impact assessments, the conceptualisation of data collection methods and information sources, the distinction between relative versus absolute impact, the comparison of impact assessment results across citizen science projects, and the incremental refinement of the organising framework over time.en_UK
dc.identifier.citationWehn U, Gharesifard M, Ceccaroni L, et al., (2021) Impact assessment of citizen science: state of the art and guiding principles for a consolidated approach. Sustainability Science, Volume 16, Issue 5, September 2021, pp. 1683-1699en_UK
dc.identifier.issn1862-4065
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00959-2
dc.identifier.urihttp://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/16982
dc.language.isoenen_UK
dc.publisherSpringeren_UK
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.subjectMeasuring impacten_UK
dc.subjectImpact assessment approachen_UK
dc.subjectImpact domainsen_UK
dc.subjectFrameworken_UK
dc.subjectCitizen scienceen_UK
dc.titleImpact assessment of citizen science: state of the art and guiding principles for a consolidated approachen_UK
dc.typeArticleen_UK

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Impact_assessment_of_citizen_science-2021.pdf
Size:
1.18 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.63 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download

Collections

Staff publications (SWEE)