Susanne HeckerMuseum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science
Susanne Hecker
Dr.rer.soc.
About
51
Publications
27,154
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923
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Fascinated by science communication and citizen science. Looking for like-minded people in this transdisciplinary field.
First editor of open access book "Citizen Science - Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy" UCL Press 2018.
Additional affiliations
October 2010 - June 2015
Publications
Publications (51)
Citizen science (CS) can foster transformative impact for science, citizen empowerment and socio-political processes. To unleash this impact, a clearer understanding of its current status and challenges for its development is needed. Using quantitative indicators developed in a collaborative stakeholder process, our study provides a comprehensive o...
Anniversaries provide great opportunities to celebrate achievements, to look into the future, and to do some self-reflection. I have the honour of doing so in a specific field of science communication that I’m familiar with: the field of citizen science communication, especially with a European focus. I hope this commentary prompts others who are e...
What do German citizen science project leaders know about the diversity of the volunteers?
How do they organize and distribute the different scientific tasks?
Aim
In this study, we assessed the importance of local‐ to landscape‐scale effects of land cover and land use on flying insect biomass.
Location
Denmark and parts of Germany.
Methods
We used rooftop‐mounted car nets in a citizen science project (“InsectMobile”) to allow for large‐scale geographic sampling of flying insects. Volunteers sampled ins...
Citizen science opens the scientific knowledge production process to societal actors. In this novel collaboration process, scientists and citizens alike face the challenge of new tasks and functions, eventually resulting in changing roles. Role theory provides a way of conceptualizing the roles that people take in communication and interaction. We...
The design and successful performance of citizen science-based monitoring require an understanding of the motivation and the needs of participants. Herem we use a questionnaire to assess intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and investigate in links between project support service and motivations in 181 participants taking part in three insect-focuse...
The citizen science landscape in Germany offers an enormous range for participation. More than 170 projects currently present themselves on the national citizen science platform. In 2020, we conducted a survey among 140 projects (participation rate 56%), and they provided information on the organisational framework and characteristics (disciplines,...
Over 500 delegates took part in the third international ECSA conference in September 2020. Across 30 sessions, as well as keynote talks, e-poster presentations and more informal settings, they discussed and debated a diverse range of subjects related to citizen science. This special edition of ‘JCOM’ brings together some of the central themes that...
Citizen science has expanded rapidly over the past decades. Yet, defining citizen science and its boundaries remained a challenge, and this is reflected in the literature—for example in the proliferation of typologies and definitions. There is a need for identifying areas of agreement and disagreement within the citizen science practitioners commun...
This is the first version of the White Paper Citizen Science Strategy 2030 for Germany. This version is out for consultation from 8/8/21-30/9/2021 and will then be revised with received comments and reviews accordingly. Consultation website: www.citizen-science-weissbuch.de
Citizen science is a transdisciplinary approach that responds to the current science policy agenda: in terms of supporting open science, and by using a range of science communication instruments. In particular, it opens up scientific research processes by involving citizens at different phases; this also creates a range of opportunities for science...
This paper reports on a workshop during the Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2020 that allowed discursive conversation about the reasoning and the formation of opinions around assessing short case descriptions as citizen science, or not. Debater’s opinions on cases seemed fluid and often changed when new information became available. Hence, the...
In this chapter, we explore the landscape of citizen science across Europe, how networks have developed, and how the science of citizen science has evolved. In addition to carrying out a literature review, we analysed publicly available data from the European Commission’s Community Research and Development Information Service (Cordis). We also extr...
Citizen science has manifold relationships to policy, which is understood as sets of ideas or plans for action followed by a government, business, political party, or group of people. In this chapter, we focus on the relationship between citizen science, government policies, and the related notions of politics and polity. We discuss two core areas...
In this chapter, we address the perennial question of what is citizen science? by asking the related question, why is it challenging to define citizen science? Over the past decade and a half, we have seen the emergence of typologies, definitions, and criteria for qualifying citizen science. Yet, citizen science as a field seems somewhat resistant...
Citizen science has expanded rapidly over the past decades. Yet, defining citizen science and its boundaries remained a challenge, and this is reflected in the literature - for example in the proliferation of typologies and definitions. There is a need for identifying areas of agreement and disagreement within the citizen science practitioners comm...
Recent studies report declines in biomass, abundance and diversity of terrestrial insect groups. While anthropogenic land use is one likely contributor to this decline, studies assessing land cover as a driver of insect dynamics are rare and mostly restricted in spatial scale and types of land cover. In this study, we used rooftop-mounted car nets...
Policy and science show great interest in citizen science as a means to public participation in research. To recognize how citizen science is perceived to foster joint working at the science-society-policy interface, a mutual understanding of the term “citizen science” is required. Here, we assess the conceptualisation and strategic use of the term...
Storytelling essentials are stories that direct attention, trigger emotions, and prompt understanding. Citizen science has recently promoted the narrative approach of storytelling as a means of engagement of people of all ages and backgrounds in scientific research processes. We seek understanding about the typology of storytelling in citizen scien...
This poster shows the results of a research project that was executed at the iDiv Summer School 2019. The authors assessed 500 Citizen Science projects reported in an EU inventory and conducted an in-depth analysis of 25 case studies. The study aimed at determining the impact of citizen science projects on the policy cycle.
About the book
Citizen science, the active participation of the public in scientific research projects, is a rapidly expanding field in open science and open innovation. It provides an integrated model of public knowledge production and engagement with science. As a growing worldwide phenomenon, it is invigorated by evolving new technologies that...
Highlights
• There has been a paradigm change from a one-way transfer of science
information to a paradigm of exchange that demands adequate
science communication.
• Communication in citizen science projects is key to motivating and
retaining participants and exchanging information.
• Stories can play an important role in translating the abstract a...
This chapter provides an introduction into current strands of citizen science and introduces the sections of the book "Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy".
Highlights
• Strategic capacity-building programmes have been initiated at the European and national scale leading to the development of the Socientize Green and White Paper for Citizen Science in Europe and the Greenpaper Citizen Science Strategy 2020 for Germany.
• These programmes have broader relevance in informing national and supranational pr...
Citizen science is growing as a field of research with contributions from diverse disciplines, promoting innovation in science, society, and policy. Inter- and transdisciplinary discussions and critical analyses are needed to use the current momentum to evaluate, demonstrate, and build on the advances that have been made in the past few years. This...
Die Plattform Österreich forscht (www.citizen-science.at) wurde 2014 mit den Zielen gegründet, (1) Citizen Science Akteurinnen und Akteure in Österreich zu vernetzen, (2) einen möglichst umfassenden Überblick über Citizen Science Projekte in Österreich zu geben und (3) allgemein die Methodik Citizen Science wissenschaftlich weiter zu entwickeln.Vie...
The platform Österreich forscht (www.citizen-science.at) was founded in 2014 with the objectives of (1) connecting citizen science actors in Austria, (2) providing the broadest possible overview of citizen science projects in Austria, and (3) scientifically advancing citizen science as a method.Following the initiative of the platform Österreich fo...
Citizen Science bedeutet Engagement von Bürgerinnen und Bürgern in der konkreten Bearbeitung wissenschaftlicher Themen. Diese sind vielfach von hoher gesellschaftlicher Relevanz. Als Form der aktiven Teilhabe der Öffentlichkeit bei Problemlösungsprozessen erlangt Citizen Science in Deutschland verstärkt sowohl wissenschaftliche, als auch gesellscha...
Citizen science approaches provide opportunities to support ecosystem service assessments. To evaluate the recent trends, challenges and opportunities of utilizing citizen science in ecosystem service studies we conducted a systematic literature and project review. We reviewed the range of ecosystem services and formats of participation in citizen...
Die Publikation "Citizen Science für alle“ ist eine praktische Ressource für Initiierende, Beteiligte und Interessierte an Citizen Science-Projekten. Die Handreichung liefert praktische Tipps für die Planung und Umsetzung von Citizen Science- Projekten und schafft einen Überblick zur Citizen Science-Praxis in Deutschland.
Welche Punkte muss ich be...
The number of collaborative initiatives between scientists and volunteers (i.e., citizen science) is increasing across many research fields. The promise of societal transformation together with scientific breakthroughs contributes to the current popularity of citizen science (CS) in the policy domain. We examined the transformative capacity of citi...
Der „Mückenatlas” – www.mueckenatlas.de – ist ein Erfolgsbeispiel für das sogenannte Citizen
Science, also Wissenschaft mit Bürgerbeteiligung. Bei diesem Projekt werden Privatpersonen
aufgefordert, Stechmücken zu fangen und zur wissenschaftlichen Weiterverwertung einzuschicken.
Das Primärziel ist es, die Gewinnung von Daten zur Stechmückenfauna Deu...
Projects
Projects (3)
Biodiversity observation and conservation initiatives in Germany are borne by volunteer work. However, data collection and storage on the variety of taxa and spatial coverage is organized by different learned societies, NGOs, national and local authorities, museums of natural history, universities and other scientific institutions. Many of these institutions collect and maintain their data by the aid of Citizen Science projects, which often operate only on a local scale. Moreover, each project follows its own survey design, taxonomic concept, data standards and host its own database, not necessarily digital or accessible through a web portal. Following the urgent need for a more comprehensive approach we are currently carrying out a feasibility study for a Living Atlas of Germany that aims to bring together the multiple projects and data sources in one online portal to synthesize biodiversity monitoring and conservation efforts in Germany. We develop a framework for such a portal in dialogue with representatives of all relevant institutions, through workshops, questionnaires, meta analyses and personal conversations. At this, the first and foremost objective of the atlas platform is to build up a network of cross-taxonomic experts, conservation organizations, scientists, authorities and citizens to enhance communication, coordination and knowledge exchange. Additionally, consensus is that the atlas initiative should harmonize existing heterogeneous survey and data standards and provide services, such as hosting databases, providing web space or developing analysis tools or applications, especially for smaller and/or ill-equipped projects. An upcoming Living Atlas of Germany is also considered to serve as a tool for environmental education and to preserve taxonomic knowledge. In a progressed phase the portal is supposed to include supportive abiotic data, such as climate and environmental data, land cover/use, and also socio-economic parameters to facilitate an added value through professional and meaningful cross-component analyses.
