Citizen science in French-speaking Belgium within environmental and natural sciences: Landscape inventory and projects characterization
Files
Raucq_Amandine_33892000_2025-2026.pdf
Open access - Adobe PDF
- 1.48 MB
Details
- Supervisors
- Faculty
- Degree label
- Abstract
- Citizen science refers to the participation of the public in scientific research and has expanded significantly over recent decades, with a growing number of related projects and publications. Expectations toward this approach are various, including extending traditional research to wider geographic or temporal scales, addressing complex environmental challenges, and strengthening public trust in science. However, no up-to-date, specific, and comprehensive assessment has existed until now for French-speaking Belgium within the environmental and natural sciences. This work contributes to filling this gap by combining a systematic review with a survey to produce both an inventory of citizen science initiatives and projects, and a characterization of project features based on survey responses. The 86 identified projects and initiatives indicate a strong focus on biodiversity, whereas abiotic environmental topics remain less represented. Species observations constitute the dominant form of citizen contribution. Among the 39 projects that responded to the survey, more than half are led by governmental organizations, most rely on regional funding, and about half involve between 21 and 500 participants. Many projects report challenges in recruiting participants and ensuring data quality. Contributory projects clearly predominate over collaborative and co-created approaches. No consensus exists among practitioners regarding the meaning or use of the terms "science citoyenne" and "science participative". This exploratory overview provides the first baseline of the citizen science landscape in French-speaking Belgium within the environmental and natural sciences and lays the groundwork for future research in this context.