Tackling Environmental Threats with Grassroots Citizen Science

Air pollution, climate change, disease outbreaks and other threats have spurred a new form of public engagement with science and technology called environmental grassroots citizen science. Contrary to expert-led citizen science projects in which citizens collect scientific data for experts, these grassroots initiatives emanate from the bottom up, with citizens developing their own measurement tools and generating their own data, distinct from official institutional approaches. Environmental grassroots citizen science is markedly on the rise in Europe, where citizens demand policy action against air, traffic, and related forms of pollution. By taking science and technology into their own hands, citizens increase pressure on public authorities and scientists to ‘open up’ scientific research and environmental policymaking to society. Policymakers, scientists, businesses and other stakeholders are taking notice. Some experts express a willingness to work with these citizen scientists, while others raise concerns about the scientific quality of the data produced by citizens and the value these data have to those who set science policy, as most citizens lack formal scientific training. Grassroots citizen scientists in turn voice criticism of institutional science and its links with industry and government, arguing that such connections inhibit knowledge sharing and the development of a true participatory science culture. How then should we imagine environmental governance? What (if any) is the role of grassroots citizen science in this process? And how should governments and experts respond to citizen scientists and their demands? This research project seeks to develop answers to these questions in consultation with all concerned parties.This includes your. Your thoughts and suggestions will be shared with citizen scientists, decision makers, professional researchers, and others in a coordinated effort to identify and address the challenges and pitfalls of environmental governance

Fukushima Travels

This poster is inspired by my recent research work on the 2011 Fukushima disaster. It depicts how ‘Fukushima’ has registered in narratives, pictures, and images in my home country of Belgium, evoking hope, despair, anger, and awe. Fukushima travels a complicated route, and is transformed and repackaged in various ways. Alongside the dominant, mediatized narratives of expert reasoning (‘Here are the facts’) and fear (‘It could happen here’), we encounter denial and technological solutionism (‘Important milestone in Fukushima cleanup’), as well as aspirations of transformation and renewal. The latter include experiments in citizen science, with citizens in Japan and elsewhere generating their own scientific data and tools, and seeking to open research and science policymaking to the wider public. As a social scientist who collaborates with nuclear scientists and technologists and who informs policymakers, I am drawn to these new starting points and to how travels between Japan and Europe can generate new fields of possibility for stakeholders interested in civic engagement, mutual learning, and democratic renewal. While inevitably partial and unfinished, my impressions are meant to be generative, bringing complex practical and speculative considerations into the picture so that others could get an idea of what is at stake in citizen science after Fukushima, for individuals and broader communities. I invite others to think through these issues with me and to confess to the difficulties of transforming (nuclear) science-society governance towards robust and responsible processes and outcomes

Oost-Azië: lichtend voorbeeld in ‘coronatijden’?

Er lijkt zich onder experts een consensus af te tekenen dat Oost-Aziatische landen de coronacrisis goed – of toch naar best vermogen – aanpakken. Maar klopt dat beeld? En waaraan is het ‘succes’ van die landen dan te wijten

Science by, with and for citizens: rethinking ‘citizen science’ after the 2011 Fukushima disaster

AbstractThis study illustrates how citizen-driven radiation monitoring has emerged in post-Fukushima Japan, where citizens generate their own radiation data and measurement devices to provide public with actionable data about their environments. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in and around Fukushima Prefecture, it highlights the multifaceted character of these bottom-up, citizen-led efforts, contrasting these initiatives with the emergence of “citizen participatory” science policy discourses in Japan. Recognizing the contested nature of citizenship in Japan and in the nuclear arena, the article considers how terms and definitions shape the participation of citizens and other stakeholders (local communities, public authorities, regulators, and professional scientists) in science and technology in culturally and historically specific ways. It builds on these observations to open up new spaces of expertise, which engage all stakeholders through social-scientific intervention.</jats:p

Sharing ‘Open Science’ Experiences: A Conversation on Citizen Science

In this panel session, citizen science practitioners, researchers, and facilitators share their unique responses to the question What is good citizen science, for whom, and why?, with the aim of informing and developing citizen science theory and practice

Flanders Ahead, Wallonia Behind (But Catching up): Reconstructing Communities Through Science, Technology and Innovation Policymaking

Drawing on a documentary analysis of two socio-economic policy programs, one Flemish (“Vlaanderen In Actie”), the other Walloon (“Marshall Plans”), and a discourse analysis of how these programs are received in one Flemish and one Francophone quality newspaper, this article illustrates how Flanders and Wallonia both seek to become top- performing knowledge-based economies (KBEs). The paper discerns a number of discursive repertoires, such as “Catching up,” which policy actors draw on to legitimize or question the transformation of Flanders and Wallonia into KBEs. The “Catching up” repertoire places Flanders resolutely ahead of Wallonia in the global race towards knowledge, excellence, and growth, but suggests that Wallonia may, in due course, overtake Flanders as a top competitive region. Given the expectations and fears that “Catching up” evokes among Flemish and Walloon policy actors, the repertoire serves these actors as a flexible discursive resource to make sense of, and shape, their collective futures and their regional identities. The article’s findings underline the simultaneity of, and the interplay between, globalizing forces and particularizing tendencies, as Flanders and Wallonia develop with a global KBE in region-specific ways

Science by, with and for citizens: rethinking ‘citizen science’ after the 2011 Fukushima disaster

Abstract: This study illustrates how citizen-driven radiation monitoring has emerged in post-Fukushima Japan, where citizens generate their own radiation data and measurement devices to provide public with actionable data about their environments. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in and around Fukushima Prefecture, it highlights the multifaceted character of these bottom-up, citizen-led efforts, contrasting these initiatives with the emergence of “citizen participatory” science policy discourses in Japan. Recognizing the contested nature of citizenship in Japan and in the nuclear arena, the article considers how terms and definitions shape the participation of citizens and other stakeholders (local communities, public authorities, regulators, and professional scientists) in science and technology in culturally and historically specific ways. It builds on these observations to open up new spaces of expertise, which engage all stakeholders through social-scientific intervention

An experimental realisation of steady spanwise forcing for turbulent drag reduction

We present an experimental realisation of spatial spanwise forcing in a turbulent boundary layer flow, aimed at reducing the frictional drag. The forcing is achieved by a series of spanwise running belts, running in alternating spanwise direction, thereby generating a steady spatial square-wave forcing. Stereoscopic particle image velocimetry is used to investigate the impact of actuation on the flow in terms of turbulence statistics, performance characteristics, and spanwise velocity profiles, for a waveform of $\lambda_x^+ = 401$. An extension of the classical spatial Stokes layer theory is proposed based on the linear superposition of Fourier modes to describe the non-sinusoidal boundary condition. The experimentally obtained spanwise profiles show good agreement with the extended theoretical model. In line with reported numerical studies, we confirm that a significant flow control effect can be realised with this type of forcing. The results reveal a maximum drag reduction of 26% and a maximum net power savings of 8%. In view of the limited spatial extent of the actuation surface in the current setup, the drag reduction is expected to increase further as a result of its streamwise transient. The second-order turbulence statistics are attenuated up to a wall-normal height of $y^+ \approx 100$, with a maximum streamwise stress reduction of 44% and a reduction of integral turbulence kinetic energy production of 39%

An RRI for the Present Moment: Relational and ‘well-up’ innovation

The ultimate framing of the first iteration of RRI as enabling smart, inclusive, sustainable growth had as much to do with the financial crisis then engulfing the Eurozone as meeting the goals of the Lisbon Treaty. Now we have come to the end of Horizon 2020, it is presently unclear how RRI will continue to be addressed as it is mainstreamed into Horizon Europe. In this Perspective, we will argue that discussions about placing responsibility at the centre of innovation should not solely be aimed at promoting GDP-measured growth. Our vision must be longer, more global, more transformative. In this short piece, we explore the possibilities arising through extending ‘responsibility’ to an a-growth approach to innovation, one which emphasises the relational dimensions of responsible innovation through the concept of ‘well up’ economics