Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues

Project Information

COESO

Grant agreement ID: 101006325

DOI

10.3030/101006325

Project closed

EC signature date 9 December 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2023

Funded under

• SCIENCE WITH AND FOR SOCIETY

Total cost

€ 2 193 418,75

EU contribution

€ 2 193 418,75

Coordinated by

ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - COESO (Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues)

Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The COESO (Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues) project addressed the disconnect that seems to exist between society and academia. This disconnect has recently been partially addressed through the practice of “citizen science”, also called “participatory research”, which is where researchers and community members work together on a research project. Many people are only familiar with citizen science projects in the natural sciences (e.g. volunteer backyard bird counts). Hence these kinds of projects have multiplied greatly in the last decade. However, citizen science in the social sciences and humanities disciplines has existed for a long time, mostly under different names (e.g. Public Humanities). COESO aimed to give more value and recognition to the contributions to citizen science, specifically, within social sciences and humanities (SSH) research.

Connecting society and academia has many benefits. It ensures that the research being produced is relevant for the current issues happening in society. This is good for both researchers and for other society members. For researchers, being connected with society helps them to better find and collect the information they need to do their research; it ensures that the methodologies and theories they are working on are grounded in the current reality. For other society members, such as professionals working to solve social issues (e.g. crime, poverty, access to healthy food, etc.), having the chance to contribute to academia results in research that is immediately useful for them in making evidence-based decisions.

COESO had a number of objectives that all supported one overarching objective: overcome the obstacles that hinder the development of citizen science in the social sciences and humanities.The supporting objectives were: 1) support collaborative practices in the SSH citizen science through the creation and implementation of 10 Pilot SSH citizen science projects. 2) enhance financial support to citizen science projects in the SSH through advocacy work that directly engages research funders. 3) Leverage transmedia techniques to engage the public with SSH research by experimenting with specific software and approaches to working with communities. 4) engage with stakeholders from different backgrounds, addressing gender balance and inclusivity throughout all of the project activities; 5) experiment with citizen science methodologies that favour social empowerment, such as involving interactive workshops, mapping exercises and gaming activities.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

COESO enabled 10 Pilot citizen science projects, which represent a variety of disciplines and societal challenges. Information about all the pilots can be found here: https://coeso.hypotheses.org/pilots. The last five of the projects were found through a successful Open Call process, and the corresponding“Guide for Applicants”, which may be helpful for funders to consult when developing their own is available here: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10215025

COESO developed, from conception to market delivery, VERA (Virtual Ecosystem for Research Activation), a digital hub that enables and encourages citizen science and participatory research involving social science and humanities (SSH) disciplines. The project members from the 10 Pilots provided feedback at all stages of the project. Join the VERA hub here: https://vera.operas-eu.org/

COESO developed and facilitated Mutual Learning Exercises (MLEs) among the Pilots and other relevant citizen science community members where participants exchanged information about the practices they used to cocreate research together. All of the MLEs are explained in the report called Public Engagement, Mutual Learning, and Multimodal Practices in Citizen Science: report on the activities of WP6, available here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10046771

COESO researched and documented the funding landscape for citizen science and participatory research in the social sciences and humanities, and then advocated for more funding by engaging funders in workshops about SSH citizen science project needs. Read the report and get ideas for how you increase funding opportunities here: https://coeso.hypotheses.org/funding-advocacy

COESO experimented with research storytelling practices that support public engagement, including the production of an engaging podcast, “Exploring Citizen Science: can research and society be (re)connected?” (https://podfollow.com/exploring-citizen-science) and a series of mainstream articles called “Common Grounds” in an online magazine, Cafebabel (https://cafebabel.com/en/article/tag/common-grounds/). Additionally, the project created a multimodal website (https://saojose.huma-num.fr/) that depicts an ethnography of tourism in Lisbon, and updated a software called MemoRekall that is used for annotating videos https://memorekall.com/en/.

COESO developed a proof of concept for a potential tool that uses Natural Language Processing techniques to analyse written and spoken language for the purpose of creating a report that assists researchers to self-assess how they cooperate with each other. The codes and other processes developed within COESO are here: https://github.com/yuma-ando/COESO_Cooperation_Analytics

To disseminate all of the project results and encourage their use, the COESO consortium members collectively organised and attended 140 events (e.g. conference, workshops, community meetings; etc.); wrote 90 blog posts, designed 17 posters; contributed to 26 newsletter editions; published 35 reports on Zenodo.org and added the links to the COESO website (https://coeso.hypotheses.org/publications); organised a final conference (https://ccc.sciencesconf.org/) that gathered 170 participants from around the world; and published around 800 social media posts.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Through all the activities that made up the COESO project, two main effects resulted. First, it developed sustainable opportunities for citizen science within the social science and humanities disciplines through the knowledge exchanged in the Mutual Learning Exercises it facilitated and through the free VERA hub it created for everyone to use. Second, it increased the visibility and recognition of the SSH contribution to citizen science through experimentation with transmedia techniques, through storytelling with podcasts and mainstream magazine articles, through directly engaging funders with SSH citizen science, through the funding tool on VERA, through a link made between VERA and the EU-Citizen.Science website, and through proactive involvement with working groups within the wider European citizen science community. These two effects continue to work together, even after the project has ended, to accomplish the overall effect of increasing citizen science in the social sciences and humanities. Concretely, members of the 10 Pilots reported that they not only accomplished what they set out to accomplish, but the collaborations that took place within their individual projects led to more ideas, actions and future collaborative research plans. Additionally, the Pilot members shared a number of ways that their research collaborations improved their professional work overall. When society and academia work together, they benefit in many ways, including the creation and activation of applicable research for the common good, which ultimately leads to more evidence-based practices to solve societal issues.

The VERA hub's home page

Interactive workshop at Connect.Collaborate.Create. conference

Snapshot of funding policy recommendations

Plenary panel audience at Connect.Collaborate.Create. conference

Mutual Learning Exercises with Pilots in Marseille, France

COESO Podcast artwork