Citizen Science & Living Labs
Citizen Science & Living Labs: How do you involve citizen scientists in your Living Lab projects?
BACKGROUND/HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF THE WORKSHOP
This workshop is a result of the European research and innovation project iSCAPE (Improving the Smart Control of Air Pollution in Europe) which aims to develop an integrated strategy for air pollution control in six European cities. During iSCAPE, low-cost air quality sensors were developed and these sensors have been used by citizens during a series of citizen science workshops run by the iSCAPE living labs, following the citizen science framework, developed by Connected Places Catapult (UK). This framework provided the iSCAPE living labs with guidelines and instructions (including tips and relevant materials) for the workshops.
Having run 12 citizen science workshops across the living labs, the iSCAPE team has gained a wealth of learnings and practical experience in how to use citizen science as a tool for Living Lab activities and public engagement. In addition, Tampere from the UNaLab project will share their learnings from citizen science in measuring water quality in their city. This knowledge will be shared and discussed during the interactive, hands-on workshop too.
MAIN AIM / OBJECTIVE
The main objective of this workshop is to share knowledge and discuss the potential of using citizen science as a tool for citizen engagement in Living Lab activities. To achieve this, the workshop is structured around an interactive discussion amongst workshop participants, as well as a demonstration of low-costs sensing technologies. During the workshop, participants will be encouraged to develop a tailored action plan for integrating citizen science best practices with their Living Lab approach.
The participants, including those from a variety of living labs, will be invited to share experiences of citizen science initiatives, and contribute to discussions surrounding the challenges and opportunities of using low-cost technologies for citizen engagement.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
During the workshop participants will learn about:
1. What is citizen science and how it can be used across a variety of living labs. A few examples of how citizens science has been used to tackle climate-related challenges by living labs will be provided.
2. How can living labs incorporate citizen science methodologies in their co-creation and / or citizen engagement activities.
3. Key steps and considerations to be made when planning citizen science initiatives.
4. What technologies can be used when undertaking citizen science activities.
5. First steps towards a citizen science community – the importance of motivation and guidance of the citizen scientists to establish an independent and a long-term collaboration between the living labs and the public.
BRIEF OUTLINE / METHODOLOGY
METHOD:
This collaborative workshop leads to an action plan, integrating citizen science with living lab activities, and includes a hands-on sensor exploration. To guide the process, a pre-structured worksheet (A1) is provided as a tool to encourage discussions and gather knowledge from team members. Workshop participants will work in teams (4-5 teams). Each table will form a team with 4-5 participants.
FLOW:
1) The session will open with a short introduction to the workshop and expected outcomes. A few examples of how citizen science was used in the H2020 projects (iSCAPE and UNaLab) will be provided. In iSCAPE citizen science has been deployed in exploring the effects of air pollution through the use of Smart Citizen Kit sensors. In UNaLab, the city of Tampere has engaged school children in measuring water quality in their neighbourhoods. A short warm-up exercise will follow the introduction and will not only allow the teams to get to know each other but will also enable the participants to step into the shoes of citizen scientists to gain an empathetic understanding of the task at hand.
2) The participants will be introduced to the iSCAPE Citizen Science framework. Working on a large worksheet, teams will go through the different stages and elements which should be considered when conducting citizen science initiatives, including value that citizen scientists could bring to the research process.
3) Upon completion of the exercise, each team will present their work to everyone and gather feedback. We believe that this collaborative exercise will open up new ways of working with the general public/citizens who are interested in researching any given topic of interest.
4) The final part of the workshop will focus on the Smart Citizen Kit, a hands-on demo of low-cost sensing technologies. This exercise will allow workshop participants to not only have a first-hand experience of using such technologies but also provide an opportunity for the teams to engage in deeper conversations about low-cost technologies. Participants will also have the opportunity to see the water measurement rucksacks that Tampere will showcase from their activities.
Workshop Facilitators
Katinka Schaaf
Service Designer
Katinka Schaaf
Service DesignerKatinka Schaaf is a Service Designer in the Urban Technology team at Connected Places Catapult (previous Future Cities) London. Her expertise centres around human centred design with an emphasis on citizen engagement and city experimentation. She is eager to apply a hands-on approach to innovation projects and explore new solutions to complex city challenges. Her main focus in the past year has been the Horizon 2020 OrganiCity project. For this project, she developed and delivered the Experimentation as a Service framework in collaboration with 15 other partners. In June 2018 Katinka joined the iSCAPE project where she is responsible for overseeing the management of six Living Labs and training project partners in citizen engagement methods as well as other Living Lab activities. Since September 2019 Katinka is working on a regulatory sandbox project called Alternative Camden (alt.cmd) together with Camden Council and the greater London Authority and other partners they are setting up a testbed for experimentation which fosters collaboration and build solutions to shared challenges. Katinka is a committee member of the UK Service Design Network, the aim is to educate the industry and increase awareness of Service Design through workshops, events and conferences.
Santa Stibe
Project Management Professional
Santa Stibe
Project Management ProfessionalSanta is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with strong international credentials and experience in strategic relationship building and partnership strengthening in cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary environments. Santa has worked across different industries and has managed a number of international, academia-led projects enhancing public- private- people partnerships in such domains as air pollution, nature-based solutions, e-tourism, mobile healthcare, wellbeing, and social innovation. Having also been deeply involved in implementing these projects, Santa has developed a passion for innovation and collaboration at a large and often very complex scale. Santa is currently managing the iSCAPE consortium and project activities.
Katariina Malmberg
Project Manager
Katariina Malmberg
Project ManagerKatariina Malmberg (M.Sc. Econ., M.Mus.) has completed her Master’s degree in Economics and Business administration at the department of Management in Helsinki School of Economics (nowadays Aalto University). She started working at ENoLL in September 2016 as a project manager, and from August 2017 onward she has had the responsibility of project management tasks and living lab support as an in-house consultant at ENoLL in EU-funded U4IoT coordination and support action focusing on user-engagement. Before joining ENoLL, Katariina worked at the Center of Knowledge and Innovation Research (CKIR) in Aalto University between 2008-2016, latest as a project manager. Her responsibilities in national and EU research and innovation projects included communications, project administration and research, especially in the area of user-driven innovation. When not working on project management, Katariina is devoting her time to professional music activities as a baroque oboist.
Spela Zalokar
International Project Manager
Spela Zalokar
International Project ManagerSpela Zalokar, is a Communications Officer and International Project Manager at ENoLL. As a project manager, she is working on the Urban Nature Labs (UNALAB) project in which she is focusing on the co-creation activities and the uptake of Urban Living Labs in several European cities. The game which will be played at the OpenLivingLab Days is a combination of several different areas of work within the project. Using the serious games approach, concepts dealt with in UNALAB (such as Urban Living Labs, co-creation tools and Nature-Based Solutions) are combined in an interesting and playful way and thus accessible to all types of audience.
Ines Vaittinen
International Project Manager
Ines Vaittinen
International Project ManagerInes is an International Project Manager and Developer at ENoLL. She has completed her Master’s degree studies in International Design Business Management at Aalto University and also has a background in Architecture (BSc from Politecnico di Milano). Her international background includes studying and working across 6 different countries. Professionally she has experience from Corporate Innovation (eg. Design Thinking, Strategic Innovation) and project work on user-centered design solutions for corporate clients in the field of service design, experience design and behavior design. Ines is currently specializing in co-creation techniques, tools and methodologies. Her main responsibilities at ENoLL include project management of EU-MACS, iSCAPE and SISCODE projects, performing a task leading role in UNaLab project as well as support on the U4IOT project, while lending her design-focused expertise across the board of projects and activities at ENoLL. Ines is responsible for the Learning Lab, a tailored training programme as well as consultancy offerings to learn more about Living Labs.