Maximizing engagement in citizen science, moving to seventh level

Abstract

We need new approaches to get data that help us to make a difference in safeguarding and understanding marine systems. But new discoveries require a lot more eyes, ears and perspectives than scientists currently have. Citizen science provides those eyes and ears and allows collaboration between citizens and scientists that can catapult scientific research. However, it faces a big challenge: How do we keep a high engagement level and maintain citizen participation over time? To achieve that, the citizen mustexperience a direct alignment of the project with their personal beliefs leading to loyalty and action without incentive, what is known as the Seventh Level of Engagement (Slaving 2019).

Natusfera is a biodiversity citizen observatory with high citizen engagement values where citizens can upload their photographs and provide data on location and taxonomy. In just 3 years it has gained more than 12,000 users and over 230,000 observations from almost 12,000 species. Natusfera is based on three main principles: 1) Society: a sense of belonging to a community; 2) Bottom-up strategy: encouraging participants to create their own projects based on personal interests or concerns; 3) Curation community: everyone could contribute with the species identification, notonly taxonomist. On top of that, Natusfera uses an engaging strategy that combines a Hook model (trigger, action, reward) with a Growth Loop (engagement and dissemination activities). All this forms a great scenario to achieve the Seventh Level of Engagement.We will share the analysis, lessons learned and key aspects to take into account in an engagement and communication strategy based on the case study of the ‘Biomarató Marina’, a dedicated 24 hours effort that has been involving more than 200 citizens and scientists in Barcelona since 2018 and that annually collects hundreds of open biodiversity data through Natusfera