Co-creation is a natural ingredient of citizen science, something that can even be deduced from the term’s semantics. Just like it takes two to tango, it takes citizens and scientists to make citizen science happen. While this is true in general, best results are achieved when projects go beyond the traditional citizen-scientist tandem to include other local actors into the mix. Multi-stakeholder collaboration is especially important when trying to tackle complex challenges like air pollution. Who to involve will vary from project to project. For some, community groups or schools will be enough. Others may have a need to work with policy makers or industry experts. Engaging relevant stakeholders from the get-go can aid citizen science practitioners in setting the scope of their planned activities, in determining what should be measured and where (target locations), in recruiting volunteers, and in solving technical issues before they become a serious threat. Complementary capabilities and perspectives different groups bring to the table make a citizen science initiative more resilient, its findings more relevant to end users, and overall results more sustainable in the long run.

Case studies

Athens

The municipality of Athens adopted a climate mitigation plan to deal with environmental challenges like heat waves, wildfires, and air pollution. These priorities defined the scope of the COMPAIR pilot in Athens which set out to help the Greek capital become more sustainable by 2030. The aim was to use citizen science as a leverage to promote green lifestyles and in so doing contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions and air pollution, both of which usually come from the same sources.

Two sites chosen for the measurement campaign were Neos Kosmos and Kipseli. The selection was based on the need to include areas with diverse characteristics (social, environmental, economic). As regards participants, because senior citizens are especially vulnerable to air pollution and heat waves, a decision was made to include local residents from this group as citizen scientists. This stakeholder focus allowed the team to better understand concerns of the most at-risk communities and, in keeping with the principle of leaving no one behind, empower them to become part of the climate action.

A needs-gathering session with volunteers from a Friendship Club in Athens

Initial engagement happened through a series of workshops in Friendship Clubs, local recreational centres for the elderly. There, Athens pilot's objectives were presented to interested volunteers and observers from the Social Affairs and Solidarity Agency of the Municipality of Athens, the municipal department responsible for managing Friendship Clubs. Participants learned about planned activities and what is expected of them. They were trained how to operate sensors and use digital tools (CO2 Calculator) to understand their carbon footprint and how to reduce it by adopting environmentally-friendly habits. The exercise provided a baseline for assessing behavioural change at the end of the project.

Berlin

Despite recent improvements in air quality, Berlin continues to be one of the most polluted cities in Germany. The city has 17 high-end measurement stations and over 40 small active sampling devices. However, even with all this infrastructure in place, there are still data gaps for many inner-city pockets, including residential areas, where the true extent of air pollution remains unknown.

A desire to understand the situation in these blind spots is one of the reasons why Berliners were eager to join COMPAIR. They were also keen to know the impact of Project Graefekiez, a traffic-calming measure introduced by the city's senate with the aim of reducing the amount of cars in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. These needs and motivations determined the scope of the COMPAIR pilot in Berlin. A static campaign was organised in the Kreuzberg district, while a mobile campaign was deemed more appropriate for monitoring blind spots across the city.

CS workshop (left), cycling volunteers (top right) and a static sensor (bottom right) in Berlin

Finding volunteers for the static campaign proved challenging at the beginning. However, through extensive flyering (more than 3,000 leaflets were distributed in less than five months), participation in street events, newsletters and direct conversations with residents, the team eventually managed to recruit 22 residents from the target location. An introductory workshop was organised to discuss the policy situation, its impact on air quality in the area, and how citizen science can contribute to a desired outcome. The research team also explained how to use different sensors to measure air pollution (particulate matter, black carbon).

In the mobile campaign, 45 citizens measured air quality during their daily commute while cycling. Volunteers were recruited through flyers, Instagram, newsletters, and by leveraging dissemination support from Changing Cities, an initiative promoting sustainable urban mobility. All these efforts resulted in the team receiving over 70 expressions of interest, more than their capacity allowed to manage. An introductory workshop was organised to raise awareness about air pollution, its causes and data gaps, and how citizen science can help to plug them. The 60 minute session was not enough to answer all the questions and explain how sensors work, so another workshop was arranged for selected participants

Plovdiv

Air quality in Plovdiv is one of the worst in the country. Emissions from transport and solid fuels used in domestic heating account for a significant share of air pollution in the city. Exposure to harmful particles poses a serious risk to children's health, an issue that has been high on the municipality's agenda for a long time.

Aware of this, the research team from the Energy Agency Plovdiv decided to meet with deputy mayors responsible for ecology and education to better understand how citizen science can be of value to the public authority and help it advance local policy objectives. After some deliberation, the parties agreed that it would be beneficial to know the relationship between traffic and air quality near two schools: Dimitar Talev and Vasil Levski. That is how the scope of the COMPAIR citizen science in Plovdiv was determined. Shortly afterwards, the deputy mayors signed a letter inviting the two schools to participate.

Defining the scope of citizen science activities in Plovdiv with schools and municipality staff

The main challenge faced by the Plovdiv pilot was not what to focus on or who to engage but how to conduct measurements with available technologies. Sensors that originally were meant to be used for monitoring traffic (Telraam V2) and air quality (SODAQ AIR) are running on NB-IoT, a type of standard that enables long-range communication for battery-powered sensor devices. Through preliminary tests, the Plovdiv team discovered that Bulgaria’s telecoms infrastructure does not support NB-IoT, which means data, even though collected by a device, cannot be transferred to the cloud for analysis. To overcome the issue, scientists leading the pilot switched, on the advice of technical experts, to alternative devices, namely those that use Wi-Fi instead of NB-IoT.

Plovdiv students assembling a DIY air quality sensor with a Wi-Fi connection

To conclude, citizen science should be co-creative by design. At a minimum, citizens and qualified researchers should work side by side to co-produce new scientific knowledge. For best results, however, working with a broader pool of stakeholders is advised. The precise nature of their contribution will vary depending on a project’s scope and existing capabilities and resources within a team. In COMPAIR, co-creation helped to lay the groundwork for citizen science experiments. It provided an opportunity to leverage collective knowledge to determine what should be measured, where, and how; to validate preliminary assumptions about local needs and priorities; to select target locations that resonate with urban stakeholders; and to troubleshoot technical problems. Early co-creation workshops also provide a convenient means to establish a baseline for measuring whether and by how much participants’ behaviour has changed as a result of a project.

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