Citizen science beyond 2030
Marius Oesterheld
Feb. 26, 2025, 4:09 p.m.
As part of its policy engagement work, the ECS project organises a series of online policy events with high-level experts and decision-makers from science and policy. The third of these events took place on 22 January 2025 under the title Citizen science beyond 2030: Societal engagement for a sustainable future. It was facilitated and moderated by Alan Irwin (Aarhus University, Copenhagen Business School), with expert inputs provided by Michael Arentoft (DG Research & Innovation, European Commission), Dilek Fraisl (IIASA, Citizen Science Global Partnership), Francois Grey (University of Geneva, Citizen Cyberlab), Ariane König (University of Luxembourg), and Walter J. Radermacher (Federation of European National Statistical Societies).
By contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — be it through providing monitoring data, raising awareness or promoting behavioral change — the citizen science community has already demonstrated that it can play an important role in supporting and advancing sustainability transitions. And this support is much needed. After all, the latest report on progress towards the SDGs paints a very worrying picture: With only five years to go until 2030, we are still quite far from achieving the 169 SDG targets. Moreover, massive data gaps persist throughout the SDG monitoring framework.
We therefore took the third ECS high-level policy event as an opportunity to take stock of the progress made so far and explore barriers, opportunities and strategies for strengthening citizen science contributions to sustainable development, both within the SDG framework and beyond 2030. The panel discussion revealed challenges, but also showcased lighthouse projects and potential ways forward. For instance, it emphasized the need for additional dedicated and sustained funding, more dialogue between relevant stakeholders, and increased advocacy efforts on the part of the citizen science community. Capacity-building — in terms of both training and infrastructure — and quality assurance were also identified as key issues. At the same time, the discussion highlighted the various ways in which citizen science can advance sustainable development — from filling persistent data gaps within SDG monitoring to empowering citizens for regenerative action, creating spaces for transformative learning, increasing regional resilience, and building trust in science.
Key recommendations formulated by the panelists included fostering knowledge exchange and collaboration between all relevant actors (civil society organizations, national statistical offices, government agencies, and citizen science practitioners) across different governance levels, integrating citizen science for sustainability into school and university curricula, and ensuring that the citizen science community has a voice in the design of future sustainability frameworks.
The policy event also served as the kick-off for a co-design process the ECS project is coordinating. In 2020, more than 60 citizen science practitioners and other relevant stakeholders from across Europe collaborated to draft the declaration Our world – our goals: Citizen Science for the Sustainable Development Goals. This document, which was signed by 290 individuals, institutions and projects, contains eleven recommendations for promoting citizen science in support of the SDGs. Since one of the goals of ECS is to strengthen citizen science as a valuable research approach for sustainable development in Europe, we will be co-designing an updated version of the original citizen science SDG Declaration over the coming few months.
If you would like to contribute (either asynchronously or by participating in co-design workshops), please sign up to our mailing list by filling in this registration form: https://forms.gle/BjHkAhjHcBfpA8BE8
Your insights as citizen science experts and practitioners will be invaluable in shaping this document!
In case you missed the event, you can watch a recording of the panel discussion by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptge-CZIc-o&t=3s