D4.5 - Policy Brief-Horizon Scanning Scenarios on Citizen Science Futures

Through this deliverable and the associated Futures work, we sought to define desirable future scenarios for citizen science in the next 5-7 years. The aims of this are: - to explore alternative ways that particular areas of citizen science to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Green Deal might develop in the near future; - to consider how key actors - citizens, government, business, NGOs and others - might behave under different conditions and circumstances; - to identify the key requirements of policies that could support citizen science under different conditions.

This Futures work helps to contribute towards the overall improvement of the evidence base for making policy on citizen science, which is the main focus of our Work Package 4 on Policy with and for Citizen Science for the IMPETUS project. ‘Futures’ is an approach to identifying the long term issues and challenges shaping the future development of a policy area, in this case citizen science, and to exploring their implications for citizen science policy development. ‘Futures’ provides a set of research and modelling tools that policy makers can use to support the development of policy that is resilient to a range of possible outcomes.