Citizen Science Commons

CITIZEN SCIENCE COMMONS PROPOSAL

The Problem & Background

In front of the increasing capitalistic and industry driven techno-science world, there is a need to create opportunities for the real advent of a sustainable scientific "third sector". In connection with civil society, the citizen Science movement and the open science movement are contributing to the emergence of a citizen science commons movement, including :

• Alternative economic valorization of research
• bottom-up processes of co-production and valorization of research. • new forms of intellectual property as free licenses
• social and sustainable purposes
• shared governance of scientific knowledge
• shared data and open access
• etc.

We should consider “Citizen Science Commons” seriously, as an alternative to the current market enclosure of scientific knowledge. But also as a way to "bring science into democracy".

Proposal terms

In order to meet those goals, we claim for the following actions :

1. Support the legitimacy of Citizen Science Commons in Europe ;

2. Engage resources to incubate alternative economic models (scientific third

3. Incubate and scale-up alternative governance models towards robust and

4. Embed Citizen Science Commons within regional resilience initiatives,

Existing experiences (Location & Actors involved)

The following experiences are somehow roughing out the Citizen Science Commons movement :

Science commons, Open Knowledge Foundation Network (OKFN) (USA), Creative commons Organization
Science et biens communs Association (Quebec),
Savoirs communs https://www.savoirscom1.info/, VECAM : http://vecam.org, Sciences citoyennes http://sciencescitoyennes.org/ (France)

"Sciences as commons" collective experimentation in Lyon (France) including 60 partners (fablabs, artists, researchers, etc). <claire.brossaud@gmail.com>
SCIC TETRIS http://scic-tetris.org/centrerecherche.html
Horizons des Communs in Brittany www.commons.bzh http://www.ub.edu/opensystems/projectes/citizen-science-office-of-bcnlab/ http://www.citi-sense.eu/Project.aspx

http://growobservatory.org/ https://www.opalexplorenature.org/aboutopal

Replication & Scaling-up potential

Through the development of Citizen Science Creative Commons, and narrative sharing networks, there is a huge potential for replication of and scaling-up.

Needs to move forward at the European Scale

1. The potential of this specific grassroots approach to societal innovation deserves a higher consideration. A European scale visibility would be a key leverage ;

2. There is a need for more inter-connection and cross-fertilization between European initiatives ;

3. A European juridical framework of recognition for the commons is necessary in order to protect, legitimate and encourage Citizen Science Commons ;

4. We need directs funds to empower and enable local experiences and practices of commoners.


Article European Commons Assembly/Policy proposals