New publication: Citizen Science and the Nexus (water, energy, food, population)

Under the leadership of Roger Fradera of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, I was involved as a co-author on a ‘thinkpiece’ about citizen science and the nexus. If you haven’t come across the term, ‘nexus’ is the linkage of food, energy, water and the environment as a major challenge for the future.

The paper is now published:

Fradera, R., Slawson, D., Gosling, L., Geoghegan, H., Lakeman-Fraser, P.,  Makuch, K. Makuch, Z., Madani, K., Martin, K., Slade, R., Moffat, A. and Haklay, M. Exploring the nexus through citizen science, Nexus Network think piece Series, Paper 010, November 2015

The paper explores the background of citizen science, and then suggests few recommendations in the context of the nexus, including:

• Inclusivity: a co-created citizen science approach is likely to be more appropriate both to address the more complex nexus issues and to engage all sectors of society.
• Engagement: Citizen science practitioners and nexus scientists should explore developing citizen science programmes with multi-scale engagement of citizens, for example programmes focusing on a nexus issue that combine local, citizen-led or co-created projects.
• Barriers: Research is needed to understand the motivations, attitudes and willingness to change behaviours across all nexus stakeholders, and to better understand and find solutions to barriers.

The work was funded under the ESRC Nexus Network initiative