The meeting brought together eleven participants from different regions of Austria who are currently involved in, or have recently participated in, Citizen Science projects. Building on the participants’ diverse experiences across various fields of knowledge, the workshop discussed ideas that are of general relevance to working as a citizen scientist. The aim was to develop educational offers, framework conditions, and access points that can sustainably support and further promote participation in research.
The ideas collected will feed into the development of a future research infrastructure for Citizen Science, which is being conceptualized as part of the Horizon Europe project RIECS-Concept (“Towards a pan-European Research Infrastructure for Excellent Citizen Science”). Within this project, the OeAD is primarily responsible for incorporating perspectives and voices from Austria.
The exchange was based on the results of an initial workshop held in Vienna in October 2025. At that time, several key challenges were identified, including the discoverability of active Citizen Science projects, opportunities for training and onboarding, effective communication and feedback cultures regarding citizens’ contributions, networking beyond individual projects, and access to information about research results and their subsequent use.
Using fictional but realistic personas, participants worked in small groups to jointly develop solutions to these challenges. Among other proposals, they suggested a well-maintained, easily accessible platform using clear and simple language, offering interactive and relevant learning materials for participation in research, as well as dialogue functions to facilitate feedback and contact between citizen scientists and researchers. In addition, the importance of national and international networking was repeatedly emphasized—not only through online meetings, but also through face-to-face encounters.
Together with further input from upcoming workshops with students and education stakeholders, these results will be further developed by the project team and incorporated into a first version of the infrastructure concept.
