Collaboration between citizen science projects – Why and how? A workshop addressing the need, types and (dis)advantages of cooperation in the citizen science community

Collaboration, partnerships and long-term relationships are at the heart of citizen science. In citizen science projects, we normally use them to refer to the relationship between academics on the one hand and citizens on the other. However, much less attention is paid to fostering relationships and promoting collaboration within the citizen science community.

Therefore, this workshop aims at identifying collaboration schemes between citizen science projects. In a world café session, we examine the need for cooperation in the citizen science community and barriers to collaboration. We address forms, advantages and disadvantages of cooperation between citizen science projects. The participants share their experience of collaboration, framework conditions as well as infrastructures that may enable collaboration between projects.

A similar workshop was already conducted in Austria. We were able to gather the opinion on collaboration in citizen science among a group of people belonging to the German-speaking citizen science community in Europe. Now, we intend to discuss this topic on a global scale to gain valuable insight into opinions and experiences from a diverse range of people. Therefore, this workshop may also serve as a contribution to the design of the citizen science global partnership. This partnership works on a strategic and global level, whereas this workshop focuses on a smaller scale, i.e. the collaboration between individual projects.

The primary objective of this workshop is to collect different experiences of and opinions on collaboration within the citizen science community. This workshop contributes to the further development of the citizen science movement. This workshop is interesting to the membership of the CSA because it approaches citizen science from a meta-perspective. This may help to understand the needs and attitudes of the growing citizen science community.

The CSA conference is a suitable occasion to organise this workshop since the conference brings together the citizen science community from all over the world. So, we can learn from the participants’ experiences and perspectives. The workshop participants should gain an insight into different forms of cooperation between citizen science projects and within the citizen science community, draw on other people’s experience and get ideas for their own projects.

Since this workshop is targeted at the entire citizen science community, anybody interested in the topic of collaboration among citizen science projects is welcome to participate. The diversity of the participants contributes to the success of the workshop since different points of view allow for a bigger picture.

A workshop report summarising the main results will not only be forwarded to the workshop participants but also to citizen science associations for distribution among their members. If required, a short summary can also be presented during this year’s conference. Citizen science association members and interested people will be invited to comment on the workshop results. An updated report which considers this feedback may serve as a basis for stakeholders to take strategic action to encourage collaboration in the citizen science community.