Abstract
Social innovation brings social change and aims to address societal challenges and social needs in a novel way. We therefore consider citizen science as both (1) social innovation in research and (2) an innovative way to develop and foster social innovation. In this chapter, we discuss how citizen science contributes to society’s goals and the development of social innovation, and we conceptualise citizen science as a process that creates social innovation. We argue that both citizen science and social innovation can be analysed using three dimensions – content, process, and empowerment (impact). Using these three dimensions as a framework for our analysis, we present five citizen science cases to demonstrate how citizen science leads to social innovation. As a result of our case study analysis, we identify the major challenges for citizen science in stimulating social innovation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Science of Citizen Science |
| Editors | Katrin Vohland, Anne Land-Zandstra, Luigi Ceccaroni, Rob Lemmens, Josep Perelló, Marisa Ponti, Roeland Samson , Katherin Wagenknecht |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Place of Publication | Cham |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Publication date | 2021 |
| Pages | 309-329 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-3-030-58277-7 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-3-030-58278-4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2021 |
| MoE publication type | A3 Book chapter |
Keywords
- 520 Other social sciences
- social change
- empowerment
- societal challenge
- digital innovation
- active citizenship
- environmental issues
- air pollution
- nature conservation
Areas of Strength and Areas of High Potential (AoS and AoHP)
- AoS: Responsible organising
