Call for Abstracts Policy and Decision-Making

CITIZEN SCIENCE: THEORY AND PRACTICE

Special Collection: 

Citizen Science for Evidence-based Policy and Decision-Making

Call for Abstracts

Issue editors: Muki Haklay^1,2, Smriti Safaya^3,4, Jay Benforado⁵, Peter Elias⁶, Marius Oesterheld⁷

1. University College London, UK
2. Learning Planet Institute, France
3. Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York, UK
4. CitizenScience.Asia
5. Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences, USA
6. University of Lagos, Nigeria
7. Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Germany

Citizen Science: Theory and Practice is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal providing a central space for cross-disciplinary, scholarly exchanges aimed at advancing the field of citizen science by providing a venue for citizen science researchers and practitioners to share best practices in conceiving, developing, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining projects that facilitate public participation in scientific endeavors in any discipline.

ISSUE OVERVIEW:

Citizen Science is increasingly recognized as a powerful tool for influencing policy and decision making, as evidenced by recent international developments, such as the OECD report Embedding Citizen Science in Research Policy (2025), the Copenhagen Framework on Citizen Data (2024), and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022).

However, finding concrete good-practice examples where Citizen Science has directly informed decisions either at local or high-level scales remains challenging. Equally underreported are cases where attempts to shape policy have failed, leaving the community with limited opportunities to learn from these experiences. Our special collection aims to address these gaps by documenting both successful and unsuccessful cases, supported by analytical reflections from researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers alike on what enables or hinders policy impact. It also seeks to provide actionable guidance by synthesizing lessons learned, proposing roadmaps and offering practical toolboxes for integrating CS into evidence-based decision-making.

Thematically, this special collection is open to any field and region in which Citizen Science can contribute to decision-making processes, including for instance biodiversity and conservation, environmental protection, climate change adaptation, research and education, public health, technology and innovation, etc. 

Note: For this special collection, we broadly define “policy and decision-making” to encompass both public policy—the laws, regulations, and actions taken by governments at various governance levels to address societal issues—and institutional policy, which refers the rules, guidelines, and frameworks established by organizations, businesses, and institutions to govern their internal operations and decision-making.

We will consider articles across a wide variety of topics relevant to Citizen Science for evidence-based policy and decision-making. Examples of topics include, but are not limited to:

• case studies of CS initiatives that have directly informed decisions or shaped policy
• reflections on failures and lessons learned from unsuccessful attempts to influence policy
• comparative analyses of case studies across geographical and institutional contexts
• reflections on challenges and barriers to policy influence from the perspective of researchers, practitioners, and policy and decision-makers
• actionable recommendations and practical guidance, e.g., in the form of roadmaps, guidelines, and toolboxes
• theoretical foundations, e.g., concerning mechanisms, indicators, pathways, and proxies of policy impact
• methodological papers, e.g., on issues around data management, harmonization, and quality

ARTICLE TYPES:

We welcome articles in the following CSTP submission categories:

• Research articles
• Synthesis articles
• Essay articles
• Case Studies: Application and Integration

Articles of all types must clearly describe how they contribute to advancing the theory and/or practice of citizen science.

One aim of this special collection is to incorporate perspectives from scholars and practitioners beyond Europe and North America to recognize the importance of diverse insights in advancing global discourse. We therefore warmly encourage contributions from all geographic and institutional backgrounds, including case studies drawing on traditional and indigenous knowledge.

DEADLINES:

• Call for proposals will be published October 15, 2025
• Abstracts will not be accepted after December 15, 2025
• Authors of submitted abstracts will be informed whether they will be invited to submit full papers on a rolling basis through January 31, 2026
• Papers will be due May 15, 2026. All papers must be submitted through the Citizen Science: Theory and Practice journal management system. Papers will be sent for peer-review once received. All papers will be reviewed by two reviewers and at least one editor. Accepted papers will be published in winter/spring 2027. 

LOGISTICS:

Before preparing a submission, please review the journal’s scope and author guidelines at: https://theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/about/submissions

Important note: the CSTP publication fee is $1800. Waivers are offered on an extremely limited basis following a short application process that demonstrates both need and attempts to source funding elsewhere. Further information on the publication fee and waivers can be found here.   

Your abstract submission should include the following: article type, title, author(s), affiliation(s), abstract (250-word limit), and up to 6 keywords.

We kindly request that you submit your abstract via this Google form: https://forms.gle/jweDnpT6LqN9SKnH9

Should you encounter technical issues with the form, please send your abstract by email to marius.oesterheld@mfn.berlin. 

If you have any questions about this special collection, please contact Marius Oesterheld: marius.oesterheld@mfn.berlin