Katharina Hölscher , Julia M. Wittmayer , V. Igno Notermans , Madeleine Cléa Montanari , Antonella Passani , Annelli Janssen
{"title":"Mainstreaming citizen science in policy: Adaptations needed in policy and how to achieve them in five European countries","authors":"Katharina Hölscher , Julia M. Wittmayer , V. Igno Notermans , Madeleine Cléa Montanari , Antonella Passani , Annelli Janssen","doi":"10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104148","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The potential of citizen science remains underutilised in conventional policy practice for various reasons – a compelling one being that the policy system itself must adapt to leverage this potential. This paper aims to explore what mainstreaming citizen science in policy entails and how it can be realised. We define mainstreaming as the ongoing, incremental processes of creating and re-forming the institutional conditions that enable policy-making to operationalise and incorporate citizen science. We focus on identifying 1) the contributions of citizen science to policy-making and the challenges for leveraging these contributions, and 2) mainstreaming strategies to create the institutional conditions that enable the uptake of citizen science in environmental policy. Through case studies conducted in five European countries (Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom), we generate contextualised and synthesised insights across different policy contexts. Our findings highlight the potential of mainstreaming citizen science to enhance environmental policy-making, enabling it to address complex societal challenges more effectively and equitably. Citizen science marks new modalities of public engagement, which change the roles and relations between policy-makers, scientists and citizens, shifting these towards becoming collaborators and co-creators. This requires also changing the processes by which policy problems and solutions are defined, implemented and monitored, as well as the underlying structures and resources that support the uptake of such processes by policy-makers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":313,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Science & Policy","volume":"171 ","pages":"Article 104148"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Science & Policy","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901125001649","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The potential of citizen science remains underutilised in conventional policy practice for various reasons – a compelling one being that the policy system itself must adapt to leverage this potential. This paper aims to explore what mainstreaming citizen science in policy entails and how it can be realised. We define mainstreaming as the ongoing, incremental processes of creating and re-forming the institutional conditions that enable policy-making to operationalise and incorporate citizen science. We focus on identifying 1) the contributions of citizen science to policy-making and the challenges for leveraging these contributions, and 2) mainstreaming strategies to create the institutional conditions that enable the uptake of citizen science in environmental policy. Through case studies conducted in five European countries (Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom), we generate contextualised and synthesised insights across different policy contexts. Our findings highlight the potential of mainstreaming citizen science to enhance environmental policy-making, enabling it to address complex societal challenges more effectively and equitably. Citizen science marks new modalities of public engagement, which change the roles and relations between policy-makers, scientists and citizens, shifting these towards becoming collaborators and co-creators. This requires also changing the processes by which policy problems and solutions are defined, implemented and monitored, as well as the underlying structures and resources that support the uptake of such processes by policy-makers.
期刊介绍:
Environmental Science & Policy promotes communication among government, business and industry, academia, and non-governmental organisations who are instrumental in the solution of environmental problems. It also seeks to advance interdisciplinary research of policy relevance on environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity, environmental pollution and wastes, renewable and non-renewable natural resources, sustainability, and the interactions among these issues. The journal emphasises the linkages between these environmental issues and social and economic issues such as production, transport, consumption, growth, demographic changes, well-being, and health. However, the subject coverage will not be restricted to these issues and the introduction of new dimensions will be encouraged.