Citizen Science: What is in it for the Official Statistics Community?

Citizen science data are an example of a non-traditional data source that is starting to be used in the monitoring of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and for national monitoring by National Statistical Systems (NSSs). However, little is known about how the official statistics community views citizen science data, including the opportunities and the challenges, apart from some selected examples in the literature. To fill this gap, this paper presents the results from a survey of NSS representatives globally to understand the key factors in the readiness of national data ecosystems to leverage citizen science data for official monitoring and reporting, and assesses the current awareness and perceptions of NSSs regarding the potential use of these data. The results showed that less than 20% of respondents had direct experience with citizen science data, but almost 50% felt that citizen science data could provide data for SDG and national indicators where there are significant data gaps, listing SDGs 1, 5, and 6 as key areas where citizen science could contribute. The main perceived impediments to the use of citizen science data were lack of awareness, lack of human capacity, and lack of methodological guidance, and several different kinds of quality issues were raised by the respondents, including accuracy, reliability, and the need for appropriate statistical procedures, among many others. The survey was then used as a starting point to identify case studies of successful examples of the use of citizen science data, with follow-up interviews used to collect detailed information from different countries. Finally, the paper provides concrete recommendations targeted at NSSs on how they can use citizen science data for official monitoring

The contributions of citizen science to the United Nations sustainable development goals and other international agreements and frameworks

The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a series of global development targets that were adopted by all UN member states in 2015 to address the world’s most pressing societal, environmental, and economic challenges by 2030 (UN 2015). They include 17 goals and 169 targets covering a wide range of topics from inclusive and equitable education to climate change. The achievement of the SDGs depends on our ability to accurately measure progress towards these topics using timely, relevant, and reliable data (Dang and Serajuddin 2020). To help in the development and implementation of such data and of monitoring mechanisms, a Global Indicator Framework was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2017, which currently includes 231 unique indicators as a set of metrics to deliver information on the status and trends in each SDG target (UN 2017). However, the lack of resources and institutional capacity makes the monitoring of these indicators very challenging for the producers and users of official statistics, including National Statistical Offices (NSOs), line ministries, UN agencies and others that are responsible for compiling and disseminating official statistics (Fraisl et al. 2022)

Onto new horizons:Insights from the WeObserve project to strengthen the awareness, acceptability and sustainability of Citizen Observatories in Europe

WeObserve delivered the first European-wide Citizen Observatory (CO) knowledge platform to share best practices, to address challenges and to inform practitioners, policy makers and funders of COs. We present key insights from WeObserve activities into leveraging challenges to create interlinked solutions, connecting with international frameworks and groups, advancing the field through communities of practice and practitioner networks, and fostering an enabling environment for COs. We also discuss how the new Horizon Europe funding programme can help to further advance the CO concept, and vice versa, how COs can provide a suitable mechanism to support the ambitions of Horizon Europe