Citizen Science in Environmentally Oriented Social Science Research: Trends, Projects, and Innovative Technologies

Dear Colleagues,

In general, citizen science means the engagement of the general public in research practices. Traditionally, the domain of citizen science lies in natural and environmental sciences, where collecting a vast amount of data by volunteers is welcome, effective, and facilitative (e.g., Miller-Rushing, Primack and Bonney, 2012). Social sciences and humanities research projects have recently grown in importance, calling for better cooperation with citizen science, stressing the potential of the democratization of scientific knowledge (Wannemacher et al., 2018). With the emergence of open science and public engagement. it has become an attractive and valuable tool for spatiotemporal research (Trojan et al., 2019). The approaches to how people participate on a voluntary basis in research vary from crowdsourcing (citizens as sensors, volunteered computing) and participatory science (citizens as basic interpreters) to “extreme” citizen science (collaborative science, where citizens participate in the problem definition, data collection, analysis, and where they also act as interpreters; for a deeper classification, see Haklay, 2013; Haklay, 2018).

Geography is one of the key disciplines that plays a major role in the construction of citizen science methods and practices (Trojan et al., 2019). Hence, a lot of applications can be found in contemporary geographical research. Projects such as OpenStreetMap or Wikipedia, which has its own geographical section called Geo-Wiki based on Earth surface observations, are part of the everyday-used (and cited) examples of a huge participatory effort completely made by citizens. We are quickly moving forward from the forms of volunteered geographical information—citizen science is part of geographical research not only in the environmental sciences (where public participation has a great impact) but also in human geography and the social sciences in general. Small participatory initiatives and public engagement activities are being implemented in many cities, with various purposes, such as land use planning, air quality monitoring, crisis management, and social inclusion (or exclusion) of disabled people. On the other side, this poses ethical issues that need to be considered (Purdam, 2018). Especially through mapping of the urban environment, people make visible beneficial social and environmental objects, which can be used by interested or vulnerable groups of people: for example, in mapping food initiatives, the conditions for handicapped people, ‘green’ mapping, and even contributions to urban design creation (Mueller, 2018).

The second important aspects of the Special Issue are related to the developing role of citizen science and open science. We focus on the changing approaches to science, research, and development related to the turn to openness and transparency, which has made science more open and inclusive, even for non-researchers (Mirowski, 2018). Reproducible and collaborative research, which is driven by open access principles, involves citizens in many research fields. We also discuss the future challenges of citizen science and its potential, which for the time being seems to be not fully utilized in some fields, including geographical research.

This Special Issue aims to gather a collection of papers that primarily connect social, geographical research and citizen science, including innovative practices and projects, making science more open and interactive with laypeople. The intersection of citizen science with other research domains makes this Special Issue open to geographers, environmentalists, sociologists, and other experts in the different social science fields where the principles of citizen science could be broadly used. Theoretical and methodological contributions are welcomed, as well as relevant empirical case studies with high impact potential. We welcome contributions from geographically, economically and even socioculturally diverse countries, regions or cities.

Suggested topics for the Special Issue:

• citizen science projects empowering civil society development;
• technological approaches to citizen science – volunteered geographical information, metadata, mobile applications;
• machine learning, artificial intelligence and citizen science;
• comparative studies in citizen science;
• community-based ways of participation in citizen science
• informal or invisible citizen science practices and how these could reiterate some debates in the "west" on definitions or SDGs.
• high-impact case studies – citizen science as a key approach in various geographical, sociological, economic or environmental projects.

References:

Haklay, M. (2013): Citizen science and volunteered geographic information: Overview and typology of participation. In: Sui, D., Elwood, S., Goodchild, M. [eds.]: Crowdsourcing geographic knowledge (pp. 105–122). Dordrecht, Springer.

Haklay, M. (2018): Participatory citizen science. In: Hecker, S., Haklay, M., Bowser, A., Makuch, Z., Vogel, J., Bonn, A.: Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy (pp. 52–62). London, UCL Press

Miller-Rushing, A., PRIMACK, R., BONNEY, R. (2012): The history of public participation in ecological research. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 10(6): 285–290

Mirowski, P. (2018): The future(s) of open science. Social Studies of Science, 48(2): 171–203.

Purdam, K. (2014): Citizen Social Science and Citizen Data? Methodological and Ethical Challenges for Social Research. Current Sociology, 62: 374– 92

Trojan, J., SCHADE, S., LEMMENS, R., FRANTÁL, B. (2019). Citizen science as a new approach in Geography and beyond: Review and reflections. Moravian Geographical Reports, AV ČR, Institute of Geonics, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2019, roč. 27, č. 4, s. 254-264. ISSN 1210-8812. doi:10.2478/mgr-2019-0020.

Wannemacher, K., Birli, B., Sturn, T., Stiles, R., Moorthy, L., See, L., Fritz, S. (2018): Using Citizen Science to Help Monitor Urban Landscape Changes and Drive Improvements. GI_Forum, (1): 336–343.

Dr. Barbora Duží
Dr. Jakub Trojan
Prof. Eglė Butkevičienė
Dr. Bálint Balázs
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• participatory research
• volunteered geographical information
• environment
• geography
• social sciences
• environmental activism
• civic participation
• social innovations
• sustainable development
• civic society
• open science