Hands-on citizen science and frugal innovation

The idea of our project is to focus on hands-on citizen science activities using organic waste composting as a means to measure the social effects of engagement in urban agriculture. Citizen Science (CS) is considered as a way for scientific laymen to contribute to science. Involving different societal groups in CS activities – including hard-to-reach and vulnerable groups – will not only lead to learning about environmental issues, but also helps community members taking care of their immediate environment/community. We will apply a trans-disciplinary approach, combining social sciences with natural sciences around the topic of organic waste composting. Composting will be used as a means to engage participants in the science of sustainable development, while measuring the social, democratic, environmental and economic impacts of this engagement. Composting is a novel means of including citizens in the science of sustainable development and waste management, and will enable us to develop new knowledge about the effects of CS participation by marginalized or low-income groups, as well as to understand the value of small-scale individualized composting as an educational tool for knowledge about sustainable development cross-culturally. Project partners will collect data on the social, democratic, environmental and economic impacts of composting as an urban agriculture activity. Citizen scientist participants will then be involved in co-constructing how the data is turned into usable knowledge and brought to policy makers and the wider community.