Science and Universities

On 17 November, the Trinitat Vella Community Life Centre hosted the seminar Citizen Science and Public Policy. The seminar, which was attended by around twenty people, was part of the European project CitiMeasure-“Citizen measures to create smart, sustainable and inclusive cities”, in which Barcelona Science and Universities participates, through the Citizen Science Office, and which is part of the Eurocities network of European cities. The meeting brought together representatives of research projects, various areas and services of Barcelona City Council and other agents of education and culture.

CitiMeasure aims to generate various instruments that combine knowledge, experience and good practices in citizen science and their subsequent deployment. The project aims to establish successful, stable and sustainable citizen science initiatives that are also relevant both for society and for research and the adoption of public policies. In this context, the Citizen Science and Public Policy conference served to broaden knowledge in this area through three interactive sessions and the presentation of both case studies, specifically the Mosquito Alert and CoActuem projects, which allowed the audience to understand how research projects relate to public administrations and how they rely on this connection for public policy. 

After a welcome by Julia Miralles de Imperial, delegate of Science and Universities of the City Council, and Anna Broll, head of the Department of Science and Universities, the coordinator of CitiMeasure, Mohammad Gharesifard, gave an introduction to citizen science. According to his definition, “citizen science involves a series of participatory processes with the aim of studying an issue using scientific methods and usually involves collaboration between citizens, science professionals, the private sector and decision-makers”. He then gave examples showing the advantages of carrying out citizen science projects, including improving political decision-making, as well as democratising science and politics.

The introduction was followed by three interactive practical sessions with final recommendations, which in turn were based on three guides developed in the framework of CitiMeasure. The first session focused on reflecting on the role of citizen science projects as tools to bring about collective behavioural change in the face of problems such as air and noise pollution in cities, school bullying, increasingly frequent heat waves and electricity sharing. The second interactive session explored the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to participate in a citizen science project.

The last practical session focused on the link between citizen science and public policy change, based on case studies. On both projects, participants had to discuss issues such as conflicts of interest between this type of research and decision-making, the alignment of citizen science results with ongoing policy processes, or changes in legislation resulting from project findings, among many other issues.

The seminar is part of the pilot phase that CitiMeasure is deploying in various cities. In the case of Barcelona, and taking advantage of the existence of a mature and experienced ecosystem of citizen science projects, it has focused on deepening the connection of projects of this type with the local administration and the impact they can have on public policies, by analysing the needs and expectations and the complementarity of both parties.