CoAct Citizen Social Science School - School Guide

This is the school guide of the CoAct Citizen Science School "Social dimensions in Citizen Science" during September 13-23, 2021. It contains general information of the school and specific contents related to each session. We want to acknowledge the active participation in the school and in providing the information for their sessions in the school: Josep Perelló, Nieves Lorenzo-Gotor, Anna Cigarini, Isabelle Bonhoure, Franziska Peter, Valeria Arza, Guillermina Actis, Leticia Castro, Malena Velarde, Veronika Wöhrer, Teresa Wintersteller, David Scheller, Stefan Thomas, Katja Mayer, Stefanie Schürz, Juan Freire, Marcos Garcia,  Paco González, Shannon Dosemagen, Evelin Heidel, Pia Marchegiani, Raffaele Ippolito, Regina Sipos, Irene Agrivina, Saad Chinoy, Georgia Nicolau, Pau Garcia, Natalia Santolaria, Reidun Norvoll, Aina Landsverk Hagen, Alessia Smaniotto, Claudia Göbel, Alexandra Albert, Katharina Buse.

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Welcome to the Citizen Social Science school! A common space to reflect, discuss, learn, and receive practical guidelines to explore social dimensions behind Citizen Science practices.

The school wants to consider a wide collection of approaches and participatory settings inside and outside academics, from several parts of the world.

Citizen Social Science is here understood as a participatory research approach co-designed and directly driven by citizen groups sharing a social concern. There are many ways to enhance the social dimensions of Citizen Science and there are several approaches to formulate Citizen Social Science, but the school would like to emphasize the possibilities of running participatory research involving groups in a vulnerable situation that act as Co-Researchers. Other perspectives will also be included to further complete this ambitious research agenda and thus open a transdisciplinary debate with more than 25 lecturers from a wide variety of backgrounds.

The school takes inspiration from the EU H2020 SwafS CoAct (Co-designing Citizen Social Science for Collective Action) project’s experiences and partners. It aims to invigorate the academic community around a wide set of Citizen Social Science practices while providing a critical view on their strengths and challenges.

The participant will have the opportunity to learn aspects related to the following elements:

• Review of transdisciplinary aspects to Citizen Social Science (Open Science, Ethical Research, Digital participation, Evaluation and Policy Impact)
• Practical examples of Citizen Social Science practices where groups in a vulnerable situation are acting as Co-Researchers
• Portfolio of collaborative participatory research models (interdisciplinary, intersectoral and international)
• Practical tools to maximize success and minimize challenges of Citizen Social Science
• Development of an international network of peers 
• Strategies to be inclusive in a Citizen Science project

School participants have a wide diversity of profiles, perspectives, and scientific backgrounds. Participants are coming from 20 different countries. Broadly, 25% of the applicants are MSc students, 50% are pursuing their PhD, and the remaining applicants are PhD or senior researchers. Research areas of participants include public health, sociology, biomedicine, political sciences, architecture, law… We believe that you will benefit from the transdisciplinary spirit in the mutual learning environment that we promote.

Remember that the Citizen Social Science School is a formal education activity officially recognized by the Universitat de Barcelona. You can find the instructions to get your certificate in the practical information section of this guide. 

The school is about to start, and it is a great honour to have you on board! Be ready to discuss challenges and difficulties with international experts!

Josep Perelló and Nieves Lorenzo-Gotor
School organisers