INFORME DEL OBSERVATORIO DE LA CIENCIA CIUDADANA EN ESPAÑA

Citizen science refers to the participation of the general public in scientific research activities in which citizens actively contribute, either with their intellectual effort or with the knowledge of their environment or providing their own tools and resources. Volunteer participants provide experimental data conforming new tools for researchers, they raise new questions and co-create a new scientific culture. While citizens add value to researchers, they acquire new skills and a deeper understanding of scientific work in an appealing and direct way. As a result of this open, networked and transdisciplinary scenario, science-society-policy interactions are improved, leveraging more democratic research based on evidence and informed decision-making. These results of the open engagement must also be understood in terms of technological innovation, social inclusion and optimization of resources, with a great potential for scientific excellence using larger data sources and collective intelligence. In summary, the collective creativity and the potential of scientific innovation are enriched by the greater number and variety of collaborators and the values of responsible research are adopted.

Citizen science is growing in number of experiments, in range of themes and increasingly nature of participants. Spain occupies a prominent place in Europe and in the world in the ranking of publications as well as international projects and initiatives. This document presents a report on the activities of promotion and analysis of citizen science in our country, seeking to increase our knowledge and vision on citizen science. It seeks to lay the foundations of a long-term work to first understand how citizen science is changing the relationship between science and society, and secondly provoking change thanks to the inclusion of new actors and new practices of open participation . In other words, the project seeks to understand the impact of Citizen Science on Spanish scientific culture. To achieve this, the Observatory has identified a significant number of actors (research groups, funding programs, citizens' initiatives, physical spaces, NGOs ...),  it has analyzed major trends and best practices, and collected tools for long term monitoring of citizen science in Spain.

We can summarize that Spain has a growing number of projects and actors listed as citizen science. This number is higher than what we find in most European countries. Its impacts are both scientific, social and educational. The use of citizen science and its study is found in publications, with an increasing evolution around several disciplines, especially biodiversity and environmental monitoring. But the impact of science is also noticeable in practice outside academia, including social networks.

The Observatory of Citizen Science in Spain has served to promote and foster coordination between citizen science in our country. We have developed face-to-face events with more than 100 cases between workshops and presentations, including citizen scientists. Also online activities have been developed to work with and to disseminate citizen science.