DATASET OF RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN CITIZEN SCIENCE

The research aim was to explore what aspects of citizen science (CS) make the involvement of researchers (the ones who implement CS projects) meaningful in terms of responsible research and innovation (RRI) principles. The following research questions were formulated:

1) How does RRI contribute to the meaningfulness of CS projects and in which CS aspects?

2) What motivates researchers to accommodate RRI principles in CS projects?

3) What impedes researchers in accommodating RRI principles in CS projects?

To answer these research questions, a qualitative research approach was employed using individual semi-structured interviews for data collection. Using a purposive criterion-based sample, inclusion criteria were the following:

(i) European researchers (principal investigators/project managers) that are running (at least) one CS project;

(ii) researchers who may represent different organisational settings with scientific orientation (e.g. academia, museums, and others) within Europe;

(iii) the CS project, started before 2013 (year of introducing the concept of RRI into European Union Research and Innovation (EU R&I) policy) should be ongoing during the research conduct, or the CS project started in the period of 2014–2018 (the year 2014 was a starting point since it is the date of embedding RRI in the EU R&I policy as a mandatory component of all research activities) should be still ongoing; and

(iv) the CS project covers any academic discipline.

To identify potential informants, we used the list of CS projects publicised in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_citizen_science_projects) and added CS projects from authors’ home countries. In addition, we posted the invitation to participate in the study in a newsletter within the citizen science community (e.g. ECSA) and in social media targeting specific groups and using hashtags, namely on Facebook and Twitter. At the end, we identified 117 CS projects relevant to our research aim. 20 CS projects (five females and fifteen males) consented to take part in the study. CS projects covered different academic disciplines, such as psychology, zoology, biology, ecology, linguistics, palaeontology, history and others.

We constructed a questionnaire consisting of four items: self-identity and ties with CS, enablers of RRI in CS, limitations of RRI in CS and impact of RRI on CS. Interviews were conducted remotely. The interview language was English, except for one interview that was held in the participant’s first language and then translated into English. Though some interviews had minor language-specific flaws (for most informants English is not a native language), they did not interfere with understanding an informant.

Each interview was audio-recorded, transcribed, and pseudonymized if such request was expressed in the informed consent. Average length of interview was 53 minutes. Non-pseudonymised full interviews contained an average of 6,409 words.

Different strategies were used to validate all interview transcripts for purposes of data accuracy and clarifying inaudible responses (e.g. validation of half of transcripts involved two researchers, then validation of eleven transcripts involved interviewees).

Nine informants allowed to publish pseudonymised transcripts while eight informants preferred to have non-pseudonymised transcripts published. Three informants disagreed to make publish a pseudonymised transcript as open research data.

The complete research is published as Tauginienė, L., Butkevičienė, E., Heinisch, B., Massetti, L., Ugolini, F., Popov, S. (2024). Making Responsible Research and Innovation Meaningful in Citizen Science. Science and Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scae078