On May 19th, The NEWSERA Labs were showcased in CitSciVirtual, one of the most relevant international conferences on citizen science, addressed to practitioners and researchers.
NEWSERA, the science of communication in citizen science projects
Convenors: Rosa Arias (Science for Change), Cristina Luís (CIUHCT, Ciências.ULisboa), Blanca Guasch (Science for Change), Esther Marín (cE3c, Ciências.ULisboa), Inês Navalhas (CIUHCT, Ciências.ULisboa)
When: Wednesday, 19 May, 12-1:30pm ET
Description: Most citizen science projects want to primarily reach citizens, however, many are also aimed at different stakeholders. But do the communication actions used in citizen science projects correctly address their target(s)? Do citizen science practitioners understand and use the appropriate channels to get to the different stakeholders? Can citizen science be a way to build a more active and critical scientific communication? In this workshop you will experience and discover what a NEWSERA #CitSciComm Lab is! Through these labs, run under NEWSERA project, communication strategies are co-designed to obtain a greater impact and reach more effectively the target audiences of citizen science projects.
The CitSciVirtual workshop aimed to show participants the overall methodology behind the NEWSERA #CitSciComm Labs, and involved 8 participants. The citizen science project D-NOSES was used as a case study, having in mind policy makers as the main stakeholder to whom communication actions were directed. As in the NEWSERA Labs, participants were asked to think about the challenges and opportunities of communication within the project and then move on to the development of specific communication actions, identifying, along the way, the benefits of the actions both for the project and the stakeholders. As in the #CitSciComm Labs themselves, participants used the co-creation board Miro to work together on these tasks.
A screenshot from the co-creation board used during the workshop.
The participants, asked by CitSciVirtual, considered the dynamics presented as great tools that could help to define communication actions for citizen science projects; they described the session as challenging, interactive and engaging.
