Foresight and Using The Collective Brain

Within the Citizen Science NOW project, Bespoke’s scanning and futures research focused on exploring and understanding contemporary and future developments of Citizen Science, using the following research questions as a guideline:

+ What drivers will change the future landscape of Citizen Science?
+ What are current and emerging behaviours and technologies in Citizen Science projects and Citizen Science digital training that can inform future direction and create a better understanding of needs?

Following the previously discussed desk research, the partners came together for three sense-making workshops, an inspiring session to find patterns and articulate findings from the study. This workshop consisted of three steps.

To start with, each consortium member illustrates one of the scan cards created based on their research, which they map out on a board. Next, another member finds a scan card that correlates to the first one. As each member posts their findings, clusters are naturally formed, and patterns emerge. Finally, these clusters lead us to synthesize the collected information, creating ‘Insights’.

Once these insights are created, the consortium comes together to name them according to what they see as the underlying connection between them. This step lets Bespoke know how the partners see the insights, facilitating foresight-building.

After the collaborative workshop, the Bespoke team takes another loop of making sure that each scanned card fits where it deems best. Through this process, 17 insights have been identified through our research, followed by critical signals that support them, distributed in three domains of interest: 1. Local Network and Resources, 2. Shifting Values, Attitudes and 3. Citizen Competencies and Online & Offline Capacity Building Platforms.

The insights that we have extracted from the signals demonstrate the status quo of the Citizen Science sector as well as examples that lead the way of the industry. The findings would help the university partners to take these findings into the development of PR3, a digital training program that equips citizens with the capacity for Citizen Science projects.

The details about the insights can be found in the Future foresight report on Citizen Science, to be shared soon! In the meantime, for further information about the final report, please visit the project’s website and do not hesitate to email us.