In February I shared a blog post with you about citizen science and how the FSA, in partnership with UKRI, are supporting the use of citizen science methodologies to better understand issues related to food.
Citizen science is an ‘umbrella’ term that describes a variety of ways in which the public participate in science. The main characteristics are that:
- citizens are actively involved in research, in partnership or collaboration with scientists or professionals; and
- there is a genuine outcome, such as new scientific knowledge, conservation action or policy change.
The FSA and UKRI have awarded grant funding to six projects, all of which use citizen science approaches (read my February post to learn more). These projects tackle diverse issues ranging from an exploration of the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in home-grown produce through to assessing the feasibility of getting members of the public to assess the safety of powdered infant formula preparation.
Since then, the projects have been cracking on with their research, partnering with members of the public in the design and delivery of their projects. Most grant recipients are now deep into writing up their findings. However, between receiving funding and writing up insights there have been many ups and downs along the way.
Climbing a citizen science learning curve
The last year has been a learning curve for the FSA – this was the first time we’d funded projects that use a citizen science approach. While UKRI may be old hands at this, it was certainly new for us!
We have been reflecting on what we have learnt and what it would be helpful for others to know who are considering funding citizen science or facilitating citizen science projects. Here are three of our standout lessons:
- Ethical approval – more challenging than normal
Several projects (and far more than we would have expected) found navigating their institution’s ethical approvals process more challenging than normal. ‘Normal’ ethical processes are typically designed for projects where the methodology is set in advance and there is a clear vision for what research ‘subjects’ will be doing and when. The co-creative nature of citizen science and the status of citizen scientists as research peers, rather than participants, meant that some ethical panels weren't sure what to do with projects. Several projects experienced delays in getting ethical approval or had to reapply for ethical approval as a result, sometimes delaying projects for months.
Some projects overcame these challenges (or avoided them) by taking time to explain the theoretical differences between citizen science and other more conventional methodologies to ethics boards. This included emphasising the different status of members of the public as peers rather than participants.
Projects also took an iterative approach to ethical approval. They set milestones within their projects where they returned to ethics boards to seek approval once research protocols had been devised with citizen scientists. This meant they could move forward and maintain an active dialogue on the ethics of their work.
- Build in engagement between projects and relevant stakeholders
The citizen science programme was a new programme for the FSA. Projects were selected for funding by an independent panel, although all projects needed to be using citizen science methodologies to address one of the FSA’s Areas of Research Interest.
Because of the way projects were selected and funded, the FSA made proactive steps to ensure that policy leads within the FSA and in other government departments working on similar areas of interest knew about the projects and what was being learnt. Each project was assigned an internal FSA researcher to promote the work internally and act as a conduit between policy leads and academics. This helped ensure the project’s findings were getting in front of the right people and that policy leads could ask questions and, in some cases, make suggestions for how the research could deliver maximum impact.
- Engaging citizen scientists is not the same as recruiting research participants – it takes more time and requires sustained engagement
Many social research projects encounter challenges around recruitment. Several of our project leads found it challenging to engage enough citizen scientists and get them to stay the course of the project.
We found targeting to be key. While the FSA supported recruitment by using its social media channels and established networks, projects also joined relevant social media platforms and promoted their work using suitable hashtags to get content in front of target groups.
Sustaining citizen science engagement was a more difficult nut to crack. Initial interest and sign-ups did not always translate into submitted data. However, ensuring there were multiple ways for citizens to contribute to the scientific process, safe and convenient channels for citizen scientists to take part (e.g., through social media groups), that communication was maintained so citizen scientists knew ‘where’ they were in a project, and being clear about the nature of the ‘ask’ and what was involved in participation helped ensure relevant and sufficient data was collected and analysed.
Researchers who want to use a citizen science approach should build in enough time for engaging citizen scientists and allocate dedicated resources to communicating with them throughout the project. They should also think about where potential citizen scientists may naturally group together and what types of participation options would make taking part easy and convenient.
Want to learn more? Come to our conference!
The above is just a taster of what the FSA has learnt about citizen science over the last few months. If you want to learn more, you’re welcome to join us online, along with UKRI and the Institute for Community Studies, at a day long event we are hosting on the 20th of October 2022.
In addition to hearing directly from the FSA and UKRI’s funded projects and some of the key things they’ve learnt through the programme, the day will include a range of speakers from the UK and beyond. There will be speeches and presentations from:
There will also be themed discussion rooms where you can put your questions to project leads and hear from citizen scientists about their experiences.
The event is open to anyone, whether you are a citizen who wants to learn more about how researchers and policymakers use insights from citizen science projects, a policy-maker wanting to know about what opportunities there are for you to get involved in citizen science projects, a researcher looking to partner with the public on a knotty challenge or a research funder/commissioner just wanting to know more about what the approach is and what it can deliver.
If the above sounds like it is up your street, please feel free to sign up here. If you have any questions, drop me a line at: [email protected].
AUTHOR BIO: Anna Cordes is a Senior Social Science Research Officer at the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Before joining the FSA, Anna worked at Which?, the Consumers’ Association, as a Senior Policy Researcher and at Kantar Public. She has recently completed an MSc in Social Research at Birkbeck, University of London.