Science with and for society
Our Vision
Public engagement - in all its forms and applications, including Citizen Science - has a strong structural, transformative power at various levels of research and innovation processes. It incorporates a variety of viewpoints into problem formulation and research questions - including gender perspectives - whilst taking into account moral or ethics societal concerns.
TIME4CS aims at facilitating a way in which the scientific ecosystem could better take societal views into consideration by supporting Research Performing Organisations - i.e. research entities such as universities and research centres - in defining and implementing institutional changes that can lead to a better and more effective engagement of citizens in research and innovation. Those institutional changes inside RPOs will entail transformation of their governance systems by taking into account both the social - mindset of people inside the organisation – and the organisational - norms, protocols, procedures, policy - aspects of RPOs. To facilitate this process, TIME4CS has identified 4 Intervention Areas that alone or combined can stimulate the institutional changes necessary to promote public engagement in R&I activities:
Research;
Education and Awareness;
Support resources and Infrastructure;
Policy and Assessment.
For each Intervention Area, a set of Grounding Actions (GA) will be defined. The Grounding Actions are to be considered as seeds to be sown, paving the way to Institutional Changes within research institutions. TIME4CS builds on the close collaboration between Front-Runners - RPOs with a comprehensive expertise in Citizen Science and that have already undergone Institutional Changes and Implementers - beneficiaries still in the early stage of the institutional adoption and/or maintenance of Citizen Science in their organisations.
Objectives
The specific objectives of the project are:
To increase knowledge on the actions leading to Institutional Changes in Research Performing Organizations (RPOs) necessary to promote Public Engagement and Citizen Science in science and technology
To support TIME4CS RPOs in the implementation of actions leading to Institutional Changes through continuous mutual learning and knowledge transfer programme.
To build a dynamic and inclusive Citizen Science stakeholder community
To increase the awareness of the need for a sustainable and flexible organization of RPOs governance system to better respond to the evolving relationship between science and society.
Methodology
In order to ensure a sustainable change towards public engagement in scientific processes, TIME4CS’ work plan is structured in 7 interlinked Work Packages covering all stages of the institutional adoption of Citizen Science.
A comprehensive analysis of the institutional adoption and maintenance of citizen science capacity from the literature - including grey literature - and a systematic mapping of the knowledge provided by Front-Runners in relation to the 4 Intervention Areas, feeds the definition of tailored Roadmaps for Implementers, detailing specific Grounding Actions that will be carried out during the project. TIME4CS has established a knowledge transfer and mutual learning programme between Front-Runners and Implementers. The whole process is constantly monitored and assessed through the development of a set of indicators to assess Institutional Change to promote citizens engagement in science along the four Intervention Areas defined by TIME4CS. Moreover, TIME4CS will build capacity to enable institutional and cultural changed needed for Citizen Science adoption. Training activities will be developed to contribute to raise awareness and create a community around TIME4CS, as they will not be exclusive of TIME4CS beneficiaries but open to the whole Citizen Science community.
