The ECSA 2026 conference is framed around the notion of Citizen Science bridging Centre and Periphery. This theme explores the diversity of contexts in which citizen science unfolds — from urban metropolitan hubs to remote northern and southern spaces — and emphasizes its role as a link between centre and periphery. Here, we encourage collective analysis and visioning for the potential of citizen science to reduce inequalities between centres of power and scientific attention and their associated hinterlands (which may indeed have little geographic distance between them). The theme invites reflections on how citizen science acts as a bridge across geographic, cultural, social and institutional divides. Doing so invites contributions that consider the ability of citizen science to work towards sustainability, support evidence-based decision-making, improve public health, engage with political and legal frameworks, promote integrated resource management, and honour cultural and historical contexts.
In light of ongoing global challenges, we invite scholars, practitioners, and community actors to assess the current state of citizen science — giving attention to emerging directions and pressing challenges, and to promising opportunities for the forms of critical, engaged work that have long shaped the practice.
Dimensions
- Challenges and opportunities of citizen science across centres and peripheries
What are the specific challenges and opportunities of implementing citizen science in contexts that are socially, geographically, institutionally, or scientifically distant from centres of power? How can citizen science serve as a tool for inclusion, innovation, and transformation in areas or fields that are often overlooked or underrepresented? - Citizen science and inclusion: reaching marginalised communities
How can citizen science empower and engage marginalised communities in scientific research and decision-making processes — if at all? What conditions are necessary to ensure that such engagement is meaningful, respectful, and equitable? What potential impacts — both positive and negative — can citizen science have on marginalised communities, and how can these be addressed or leveraged for lasting benefit? Is citizen science an appropriate or welcome framework, particularly where dominant or Eurocentric models may risk reinforcing unequal power dynamics? And if so, how might citizen science be reimagined to centre diverse forms of knowledge, representation, and community agency? - Citizen science across borders
How can citizen science foster collaboration across different kinds of borders and frontiers — including geopolitical, disciplinary, organizational, or cultural? What role can it play in connecting diverse knowledge systems and enabling inclusive, equitable, and cooperative approaches to research, learning, and action? - Citizen science in extreme conditions and situations of crisis
How can citizen science be mobilised in challenging or high-risk contexts — from remote environments and polar regions to situations of conflict, environmental disaster, or public health emergencies, which might be familiar to practitioners but in which academic researchers may hesitate to tread? What strategies support safe and effective participation, resilient data collection, and sustained knowledge co-production when institutional, logistical, or technological infrastructures are disrupted? - Citizen science and Indigenous knowledges and practices
How can citizen science contribute to the respectful co-creation of knowledge with Indigenous communities? How can projects be designed in ways that are ethical, collaborative, and supportive of Indigenous perspectives, values, and knowledge systems — while safeguarding sovereignty and cultural integrity? - Other compelling dimensions of citizen science
What other emerging, overlooked, or unconventional dimensions of citizen science deserve greater attention? We welcome contributions that challenge current assumptions, explore new scientific, methodological, or societal frontiers, or reimagine how citizen science can engage with communities, technologies, and institutions.
