The world is becoming characterized by post-modern societies, where social structures are no longer capable of shaping behaviors, expectations and cultural orientations, and where individuals are subjected to new sources of influence, which are opaque and not subjected to public scrutiny. In post-modern societies, science is loosing its authority and social status, because laypersons are developing critical attitudes and alternative views of scientific facts, and because they demand more transparency and accountability, to maintain their trust in science and scientific institutions.
To counteract this detachment between society and the scientific process, citizen science (CS) has been proposed as a valuable approach to engage citizens, to make them interacting with the scientific community and to integrate them into the scientific process, with various levels of engagement. On the one hand, this is supposed to change their attitudes and boost their trust towards science. Moreover, by engaging citizens in the co-creation of science, citizen science has the potential re-design scientific questions, to make its process really inclusive for society and ultimately to improve the capacity of science to address complex problem and perform trans-epistemic changes.
The overall objective of STEP CHANGE was to explore and exploit the potential of citizen science in terms of knowledge and innovation advancement and science and society alignment, through the development and evaluation of 5 hands-on citizen science initiatives (CSIs) in three different areas (Energy, Health and Environment) in Europe and beyond (Africa), and- on this basis - to formulate recommendations and tools for better anchoring of citizen science in scientific institutions. Its specific objectives were: (i) to produce new knowledge and innovation in 5 fields of research where citizen’s knowledge and capacities are fundamental for advancement, (ii) to produce new knowledge on citizen science itself and its potential for a better alignment of science and society, (iii) to develop and disseminate recommendations and tools for supporting the diffusion of citizen science and its anchorage and (iv) to promote the social inclusion in the territories where citizen science initiatives will take place, by engaging multiple stakeholders on a dialogue about societal stakes of science.
