Recent contributions of citizen science on sustainability A critical review

Abstract

Citizen science (CS) is often used to describe collaborations between researchers and non-professional volunteers who help with data collection and other research tasks, such as species identification, data annotation, and classification. Other definitions refer to citizens producing their own evidence to influence policy and raise community awareness, including participatory projects where citizen scientists contribute to defining the focus, co-design, or run an entire research project. This integrative review provides a critical appraisal of both empirical studies and theoretical perspectives on CS in emerging research related to environment and health policies, with a particular emphasis on sustainability. The analysis points to the need for greater awareness of CS methodology in order to redress the relations between scientific research and policy-making, considering local communities’ knowledge and values as pivotal to shaping future sustainability policy agendas, in ways that are both more comprehensive and sensitive to changing contexts and specific needs.

Keywords

Citizen science; Sustainability; Policy-making; SDGs; Participatory research; Top-down/bottom-up approach

Published in

Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health
2023, volume: 31, article number: 100423

SLU Authors

• Van Der Wal, René

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2022.100423

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/123530