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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Citizen Science
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1436283

Evaluating citizen science projects: Insights from radon research

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 MERIENCE SCP, OLÈRDOLA, Spain
  • 2 Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK CEN), Mol, Belgium
  • 3 University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Citizen science projects have garnered attention for their potential to engage the public in scientific research and address societal challenges. However, assessing their impacts has often been overlooked or approached with overly simplistic methods. Aiming to fill this gap, this article draws on existing literature to propose an evaluation framework to critically examine how citizen science initiatives influence science, society and the participants themselves. This framework is tested on four citizen sciences projects in the field of radon research through content analysis of project reports and deductive analysis of 11 semi-structured interviews with citizen scientists and coordinators of the projects. The study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring the impacts of citizen science projects across scientific, participant, societal and researcher dimensions at the outcome level but also process evaluation at the process level. Our findings indicate that the proposed framework provides a comprehensive evaluation tool for citizen science projects, particularly in the field of radon research, and underscore the significant potential for improving participants' knowledge on radon and risk mitigation strategies, as well as positive shifts in behaviour towards testing and mitigation and influencing public health policies.

    Keywords: citizen science1, radon risk management2, impact evaluation3, radiation protection4, citizen engagement5, indoor air pollutant6, Assessment7, learning gains8

    Received: 21 May 2024; Accepted: 27 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: Š 2024 Martell, Hoedoafia and Perko. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Meritxell Martell, MERIENCE SCP, OLÈRDOLA, Spain

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.