Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge Through Citizen Science

Chapter 4 Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge Through Citizen Science Maite Pelacho, Hannot Rodríguez, Fernando Broncano, Renata Kubus, Francisco Sanz García, Beatriz Gavete, and Antonio Lafuente Abstract In recent decades, problems related to the accessibility and sustainability of science have increased, both in terms of the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and its generation. Policymakers, academics, and, increasingly, citizens themselves have developed various approaches to this issue. Among them, citizen science is distinguished by making possible the generation of scientific knowledge by anyone with an interest in doing so. However, participation alone does not guarantee knowledge generation, which represents an epistemological challenge for citizen science. Simultaneously, economic and socio-institutional difficulties in science governance and maintenance have grown. To solve those problems, several market elements have been introduced, a solution rejected by those who consider science as a public good that states must guarantee. Alternatively, research and work on the commons are growing worldwide, the concept being extended from natural M. Pelacho (*) Ibercivis Foundation, Zaragoza, Spain University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain e-mail: mpelacho@bifi.es H. Rodríguez Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain F. Broncano University Carlos III, Getafe, Spain R. Kubus Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Madrid, Spain National Distance Education University (UNED), Madrid, Spain F. S. García Ibercivis Foundation, Zaragoza, Spain B. Gavete University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain A. Lafuente Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid, Spain ©The Author(s) 2021 K. Vohland et al. (eds.), The Science of Citizen Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58278-4_4 57 resources to knowledge resources. In this chapter, we propose science as a commons, underlining the essential role of citizen science. Difficulties also apply to citizen science itself, but the increasing development of a multitude of projects based on cooperation favours the conditions required for its sustainability and quality. Our philosophical proposal is based on empirical knowledge about citizen science coupled with socio-economic concepts, according to a sociopolitical epistemology. Keywords Science governance · Open science · Political epistemology · Social epistemology · Knowledge commons Introduction In recent decades, problems and questions related to the governance of science, particularly to its sustainability and accessibility, have multiplied not only with regard to the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge but also its generation and co-production. We can consider the case of communities affected by environmental, health, and broader societal issues, whose interests are not prioritised by those in power. Let us also consider the appropriation, by certain industries, of the knowledge of traditional and local communities, in such a way that they are excluded from access to knowledge that they themselves have generated. Or the circumstance, also paradoxical, produced by the increase in the price of scientific journals to which universities and research centres have been subjected to in order to be able to access the knowledge that, once again, they themselves have generated. Another major area of tension related to the sustainability of science is how to address intellectual property management in a way that is compatible with the open science model. Dealing with growing data sets involves serious ethical and legal privacy issues. The funding of scientific institutions and research programmes is an issue of ongoing concern and debate that requires research. Before continuing, it is necessary to clarify that talking about science and scientific knowledge requires at least three aspects: the generation of knowledge itself, the means for this generation, and the communication of results. In recent decades, all the above-mentioned issues, along with many others, have been posed in relation to the evolution of legislation and technology, as well as the underlying culture. Other questions include what does excellent science mean; how should funding for science be managed; what kind of knowledge can be patented; and, what is meant by open science. These pragmatic questions are associated with ongoing philosophical research (e.g. epistemological and ethical) that explores the differences between various types of knowledge: how they are generated; how they are validated and by whom; who owns them; where, and how, is science undertaken and why. Citizen science, as a cross-cutting and continuously evolving methodology, can offer compelling answers to these questions. The development of a multitude of collaborative projects, in different areas, scopes, subjects, etc., that favour the 58 M. Pelacho et al. sustainability, accessibility, and quality of scientific knowledge, must be considered to achieve the optimal governance of science. The aim of this chapter is to provide an answer to the question of how to achieve an improved governance of science through citizen science. We propose to understand and manage science as a commons. This proposal is based on analyses that overcome the public-private dichotomy, where the sole respective actors are the state and the market, to achieve an improved governance of science through citizen science. The role of citizen science is crucial to this proposal, as it involves a research practice in which every citizen, entity, and community can find their place and share responsibility. Our philosophical proposal is based on our empirical knowledge of citizen science and on the growing studies, both theoretical and empirical, on the commons. The term ‘commons’refers to a form of community management of a shared resource. Good governance of the commons implies that the communities who share access and/or use of a resource manage their behaviour through a self-established set of rules (Ostrom 1990; Madison et al. 2019). The commons results from a collaborative, open, and experimental process that necessarily involves the community of practice. Each community not only produces the commons but is simultaneously produced in the common acting (Dardot and Laval 2019). Justifying our thesis requires philosophical argument in different fields. We will start with a first approximation to the relationship between citizen science and the commons. The chapter continues with a philosophical consideration of the nature of science, underlining its social structure. Then, it addresses key features of the methodologies of citizen science. On this basis, we will develop our proposal, explaining the central commons and knowledge commons concepts, and conclude that citizen science should also be considered a commons. Finally, we summarise the main challenges in this field alongside recommendations for citizen science projects and for wider society. Citizen Science and the Commons: Old and Entangled Concepts Different conceptions of science and its environments have co-evolved alongside new forms of knowledge co-production (Jasanoff 2003). In this sense, various approaches have been proposed regarding science, in the more general context of co-production (Ostrom and Ostrom 1977) and the participatory turn (Jasanoff 2003). These approaches include, among others, the extended peer community (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1997), a new social contract between science and society (Gibbons 1999), public engagement with science (Leshner 2003), socially robust science (Nowotny et al. 2005), citizen science (Irwin 1995; Bonney 1996), wellordered science (Kitcher 2001), and, more recently, open science (e.g. Moedas 4 Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge Through Citizen... 59 2015). All these approaches share the underlying idea of giving voice to anyone concerned about scientific and technological issues that affect them (Fischer 2000). Regarding citizen science, it should be noted that it does not only consist of such relevant issues as establishing a greater multidirectional dialogue between all parties involved; attending to citizens’demands for decision-making on scientifictechnological and risk issues, and providing complementary socio-ethical approaches to scientific-technological ones. These approaches are, indeed, necessary and lead to meaningful participation in the deliberation and influencing of political pathways (Fischer 2000). But, citizen science practices also represent a substantial step forward in the democratisation of science, by making possible generation of knowledge by supposedly non-expert agents in all stages of the scientific process. In doing so, diverse capacities to undertake science are recognised and built (Leach et al. 2005). In addition, citizen science is not a new practice; there exist impressive examples throughout history related to active citizen participation, not only in the environmental field but also in diverse areas such as meteorology, astronomy, and oceanographic science (see Sanz et al., Chap. 21, this volume). Nevertheless, how to reconcile the contribution of a large number of non-professional agents in knowledge generation with the quality of this knowledge is a complex issue. Even so, there is a growing body of literature showing the relevance of citizen science for academic research. Besides that, closely related to the already mentioned issues, society faces difficulties in the governance and maintenance of the scientific-technological system, with consequences that go beyond the purely economic. Thus, there is a complex intertwining between epistemic issues (which question the validity of knowledge) and sociopolitical issues (which question who can be considered legitimate and responsible agents of its production) (Broncano 2006). As a supposed solution to this tension, there has been an increase in the incorporation of market elements in science management (Radder 2010; Vermeir 2013), such as intellectual property rights and modes of patenting and licensing. At the same time, such commercialisation has been frequently objected to, highlighting the nature of science as a public good (Callon 1994; Nowotny et al. 2005; Mirowski 2018), with various arguments to prevent or stop its privatisation. As an alternative solution to the conflicts –particularly in science –surrounding the public-private dichotomy, in the last decades, work and research on commons governance and collective action (Ostrom 1990) has developed in academia and in activism, law, and politics (see a complete set of references in Dardot and Laval 2019). In particular, Dardot and Laval, in their work Common (2019), explain the various meanings of the commons concept and its historical evolution. Moreover, the commons concept has expanded from natural resources (fisheries, pastures, etc.) to the knowledge commons (Hess and Ostrom 2007) since the beginning of the twenty-first century, specifically, to scientific knowledge (Vermeir 2013; Irzik 2013). This includes collaborative methodologies, for example, data production in citizen science projects (Weber et al. 2019) and data analysis in online citizen science projects (Madison 2014). 60 M. Pelacho et al. Science and Knowledge: Networks of Cooperation In this section, we first carry out a brief analysis of the current systems of scientific knowledge dissemination, as well as its generation, from the viewpoints of social epistemology (Goldman 1999) and political epistemology (Broncano 2006). Next, we introduce the diverse methodologies in citizen science projects which contribute to improved development and governance both of physical resources and scientific systems. Citizen Science Highlighting the Social Structure of Science Willard V.O. Quine was one of the most influential twentieth-century philosophers of science, chiefly due to his image of science as a vast network of beliefs whose periphery connects with reality, while the interior is populated with theoretical hypotheses (Quine and Ullian 1970). From Quine’s perspective, science is not fragmented into separate fields. Thus, an empirical result in a certain research field may influence a theoretical hypothesis in a different field. The metaphor of the network does not only apply to the meaning of theoretical terms or to the relationship between theories and experiences but also to the construction of science as collective work. An enormous number of people obtain data, generate hypotheses, make calculations, teach other people, criticise current theories, explore ideas apparently distant from their specialty, join in discussions over coffee, and, in short, create social networks on which the network of beliefs that shapes our scientific knowledge is sustained. Boutang (2011) proposes a metaphor to account for the way in which knowledge is produced as cognitive social work: pollination. In the case of the knowledge society, cognitive pollination refers to a vast network of interactions –educational, suggestive, imitative, and collaborative. Society reproduces itself through the flow of information, contributions, and small discoveries that generate the accumulation of knowledge. The globe becomes a vast campus of knowledge –where specialised professional research intersects with transdisciplinary spaces –that allows unlikely cognitive fertilisations. The image of pollination, therefore, suitably represents the situated and social nature of epistemic agency. Epistemic agency, or in other words, the ability to form true beliefs from intellectual capacities, is a faculty that has both a personal and an interdependent and collective dimension. Each researcher boosts knowledge, at least partially, by relying on epistemic resources shared with the rest of the scientific community and, beyond that, with the rest of society. Knowledge is always a situated and interdependent activity, both in the use of resources that have been donated by others and in the evaluation of the result of one’s own work. This interdependence is not based on a hierarchical or pyramidal structure of authority but on a vast network of acts of sharing, criticising, legitimising, and changing epistemic resources. It is the network’s shape that represents the image of pollination: 4 Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge Through Citizen... 61 knowledge is spread in sometimes improbable and unpredictable ways because it germinates in diverse and distant spheres. This image does not completely blur the distinction between experts and laypersons; on the contrary, what it produces is an extension of the distinction. We are all experts in some domain, in that we produce reliable beliefs, and at the same time we are all laypersons regarding our cognitive dependencies on other people’s work. Participation in science is grounded in both the nature of human knowledge and cognitive activity. The idea of a network of beliefs, supported by a social network that continuously pollinates and germinates creativity, can help us to think about citizen science in less hierarchical ways; as based on the social division of labour between expert scientists and lay persons. Science, technology, and society studies (STS), developed mainly since the 1980s, show many pollination phenomena, such as activism, that point to blind spots in science and identify new avenues of research (Hess 2007; Frickel et al. 2009). Whether this ideal is realised depends on multiple factors, including educational and institutional. Sometimes, institutional design –for example, structures in which not everyone has a voice –impedes cognitive cooperation through difficulties in accessing common epistemic resources. Practices can also lead to the exclusion of others due to competitive or epistemic arrogance. In a certain sense, the original view of science as part of the public sphere that gave rise to modern science in the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century has been lost (see David 2008). The impulse to citizen science must be part of a change in perspective on the general redesign of all our institutions of production of science and technology. That change must be focused on stimulating cooperation. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Humboldt introduced an educational reform based on the unity of the Wissenschaft (Hohendahl 2011), in contrast to the concept of science of the Enlightenment, which was much more oriented towards the separation of areas and objects. From Humboldt’s reforms emerged science as we know it. Despite its shortcomings in what could still be seen as an elitist arena, the core meaning of those reforms was and is very relevant. Those proposals can be extended to the whole of education, uniting research and teaching at all levels, and to the broader epistemic life of our societies. Incremental innovations in all fields, from scientific theory to diverse technologies, produced the paradox of a progressive and unstoppable conversion of knowledge into a form of capital. The shape of science has been drifting towards a metric system where indicators measure research impact and researchers orient their lives towards securing good indices rather than the unpredictable task of advancing knowledge. This reorientation appears to be driving a steady decline in the motivating factors and affective bonds that sustained the epistemic communities of the twentieth century, when in a few decades there were surprising scientific and technological revolutions in all fields. Faced with this trend, the joint actions of production and dissemination of knowledge have been progressively recognised by initiatives that understand science as a commons. In the Humboldtian model, researchers and professors are joined together. In an increasingly complex society, collaboration in the production and 62 M. Pelacho et al. reproduction of knowledge involves new actors and sectors, such as students in training, research managers, innovative companies, hospitals, and public services. The epistemic cooperation of all personnel is essential, and the flow of knowledge is fundamental to institutional functionality. Beyond that, we find a growing awareness that the networking that sustains science can substantially benefit from the contribution of informal networks of citizens who draw attention to abandoned or undone science (Hess 2007). Their traditional knowledge can provide new lines of research, and even amateur work can produce relevant contributions. The frontiers between science and the public are blurring, opening up new ways of extending knowledge networks to wider society. Thus, citizen science is presented as a paradigm of this new configuration of borders: nowadays, many research projects in diverse areas cannot be successful without citizen participation. The Core of Citizen Science Methodologies The methodologies currently used in citizen science are diverse and ever evolving. We are interested in projects that provide examples of good practice in the generation of scientific knowledge, not only because of their research results but also in terms of their accessibility and their sustainability. We group some examples of activities (see Table 4.1), together with their methodologies, according to a simple classification to illustrate our ongoing thesis about understanding science as a commons. The first type includes practices related to environmental management and the preservation of natural resources; the second type refers to projects whose aim is to achieve better epistemic results in different areas of knowledge; finally, a third type includes those activities seeking to improve citizen science itself. Our intention is not to introduce a new typology of citizen science projects, among the many existing ones. Rather, we seek to clarify, starting with empirical observation, the ways citizen science can contribute to better scientific knowledge and sustainability of the scientific system. In this small sample, we consider contrasting activities and methodologies. For example, in distributed computing projects participants contribute simply by donating computer processing time (e.g. Einstein@Home), whereas other projects require the participation of members of society as a whole: policymakers, academic scientists, industry and business representatives, and local communities (e.g. SnowChange). Other examples include projects funded by European funding programmes (e.g. EU-Citizen.Science) and independent projects that are sustained purely by participants’contributions (e.g. Biodiversidad Virtual). We have incorporated bottom-up (e.g. Biodiversidad Virtual)andtop-down projects in the natural sciences (e.g. Galaxy Zoo) and the humanities (e.g. Old Weather). There are also online (e.g. Debian) and offline activities (e.g. ECSA conferences), as well as those that combine both methodologies (e.g. Model Forest). Both objectives and methodologies have been intentionally shown here as separate in an analytical way, but usually they are intermingled in many projects. 4 Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge Through Citizen... 63 Activities whose main objective is the conservation of natural resources directly involve the generation of scientific knowledge: ecological and socioecological knowledge, as well as other types of knowledge (e.g. legal, economical, socioethical). The projects that address producing best practice guidelines and the associations that seek to support citizen science are largely initiated by participants and/or project managers. Many of them aim to improve environmental management, ethical aspects, and/or knowledge generation. To illustrate good practices, we have chosen both projects ongoing for many decades (e.g. SEO/BirdLife) and others limited in time and already completed (e.g. GAP2). Results co-created by the diverse involved communities include scientific publications and methodologies that can be used in their respective research areas and beyond. Some of these projects are explained in more detail in Table 4.2. Although it would be convenient to speak of citizen sciences (Lafuente and Estalella 2015) to account for the many existing types, citizen science is frequently understood as a scientific methodology that encompasses diverse areas of knowledge. Two points are clear: first, citizen science consists essentially of undertaking research; and, second, it is carried out by citizens, that is, people who are usually not professional scientists, although in many cases they work together. We agree with Haklay (2015, p. 11) when he states, in view of the diverse practices and definitions of citizen science, that ‘what is common to these definitions is the collaboration Table 4.1 Citizen science activities according to their main objective, including diverse methodologies Main objective Methodologies Good practices Type 1 Better management of natural resources Contributing with pictures. Identifying and cataloguing them Community-based methodologies, which combine academic science with local knowledge: contributing with data, stories, local culture, etc. Promoting focus groups, interviews, co-created actions and reports, as well as local, regional, national, and international meetings Biodiversidad Virtual Model Forests GAP2 SnowChange SEO/BirdLife Type 2 Better research results Identifying and classifying systems (galaxies, planets, cells, animals, and plants, etc.) on online platforms Transcribing handwriting texts or translating documents Serious games Distributed computing Galaxy Zoo Old Weather Einstein@Home Type 3 Better management of citizen science projects Constitution of associations, observatories of citizen science, etc. Collaborative networks for supporting other projects Research and/or elaboration –ideally with citizen participation –of guidelines on communication, ethical issues, quality of data, dataset management, among other issues ECSA conference Debian EU-Citizen. Science 64 M. Pelacho et al. beyond institutional boundaries, the activities that are part of the scientific process, and the cooperation between members of the public and professional scientists’.In this sense, Haklay et al. (Chap. 2, this volume) understand as restrictive certain conceptualisations of citizen science that confine it within the established research system. Table 4.2 Examples of citizen science projects constituting science as a commons Main objective Project Description Type 1 Better managing natural resources Model Forests The Model Forest approach was first developed by the Government of Canada in the early 1990s. It was in response to a period of intense conflict in the forest sector when forest workers, governments, environmentalists, indigenous peoples, and communities were in conflict over forest resources and how to manage them sustainably. A Model Forest promotes partnerships in a forum where a range of values and interests can be represented and partners with a common goal of sustainable development can share new ideas. Each forest is intended to be a dynamic ‘model’ from which others can learn and advance their sustainability goals; finding common solutions to issues such as biodiversity protection, conservation, and economic stability. (Source: International Model Forest Network n.d.) Type 2 Better research results Galaxy Zoo Galaxy Zoo was founded in 2007 by astronomers at the University of Oxford to enlist volunteers to assist with data classification to better understand the evolution of galaxies. Based on the number of participants (hundreds of thousands), the amount of data processed, the speed and accuracy in completing the project, and the number of research papers produced, it has been a success. Madison (2014) explains that the key reason for its effectiveness as a commons is due to its social organisation. Its ‘big community’was guided by a vision of a specific organisational solution to a specific research problem, initiated and governed by professional astronomers in close collaboration with volunteers. Type 3 Better managing citizen science projects Debian The Debian Project is an association of developers and users whose common goal is to create a free operating system called Debian. About a thousand developers around the world volunteer to help create Debian. The project started in 1993, seeking to be collaboratively and carefully created, maintained, and supported. It began as a small, tightly knit group of free software hackers, and gradually grew into the large, well-organised community that continues to operate today. At Debian, people spend their free time writing software, packaging it, and then donating it; their motivations include: to help others, to learn more about computers, to avoid the inflated price of software, in return for the excellent software they receive from others, or simply for fun. In academic institutions and in citizen science projects many people create free software to facilitate their research results being used more widely. (Source: Debian n.d.) 4 Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge Through Citizen... 65 Research and Innovation (RRI), and Open Science, the latter being the main current framework. Indeed, the European Commission (EC) proposes citizen science as one of the priorities of open science, to ‘encourage the inclusion of non-institutional participants, in other words the general public, in the scientific processes’(EC 2016, p. 53) and ‘re-direct research agendas towards issues of concern to citizens’ (EC 2016, p. 54). In the founding document of this initiative, Carlos Moedas (2015, p. 1) states that ‘we are moving into a world ... where new knowledge is created through global collaborations involving thousands of people from across the world and from all walks of life’. The above statements do not seem objectionable, in principle. Nevertheless, they need to be addressed in more detail as they can be limited in scope by a reductionist interpretation of open and citizen science. This requires clarifying the analysis of practices in a system whose main goal appears to be the industrial and commercial exploitation of knowledge. In this respect, the statement ‘the European Union will not remain competitive at the global level unless it promotes Open Science, and relatedly, Open Innovation’ (EC 2017, p. 4) can be seen as indicative of the instrumentalisation of ‘openness’. Citizens would be seen as ‘users’with ‘a central and transversal role to play in bringing innovation to the market’(EC 2016, p. 17) rather than as legitimate producers of knowledge. Of course, this way of interpreting open science and citizen science is not the only one in the EC. The many citizen science projects funded through the last three Research and Innovation Framework Programmes (FPs) have involved thousands of people –including professional scientists, policymakers, companies, the third sector, and citizens in general –actively participating, aware of their co-responsibility for the generation of scientific knowledge and the maintenance and cohesion of their communities and societies. Regarding more specific ethical issues, we refer to research carried out by Tauginienėet al. (Chap. 20, this volume). If the main feature of citizen science is cooperation (action for constituting commons), specific rules must be established in each project, so that ‘its practice ... by different actors and interest groups ... be monitored and reflected upon carefully’(Vohland et al. 2019, p. 6). The current ambivalence of citizen science towards either strengthening or mitigating its instrumentalisation (Vohland et al. 2019) is related to its condition as a commons. Due to the gradual properties of resources, one type of resource can evolve into another quite easily. Commons are especially vulnerable as they share properties of both public and private goods. In this sense, in a neoliberal context, they face the risk of being privatised. In short, citizen science represents an important occasion for sociopolitical and cultural-scientific change, which not only favours citizens to be more committed and co-responsible with respect to science but also to achieve better science in all its dimensions. However, it also represents a resource that we need to better understand in order to ensure its preservation. 72 M. Pelacho et al. Challenges Citizen science faces many challenges and must correct and/or prevent bad practices. Though with its own particularities, some challenges are shared with academic science (Resnik et al. 2015). Here we outline some of the most relevant ones: Epistemic or Cognitive Challenges The implementation of citizen science projects must guarantee the conditions for learning as well as the development of the personal and collective capacities necessary for research. Only in this way can scientific results better be obtained along with socio-cognitive benefits for the participants during the research process. Ethical Challenges It is necessary to disseminate good examples of citizen science as well as to prevent bad practices, such as misappropriation of research results, exploitation of participants through cost outsourcing, or participation biases. Practices that promote environmental conservation, the generation of knowledge in diverse areas, together with the strengthening of the multiple communities that generate it, must be understood as constituting the commons. Moreover, these same practices must also be understood as knowledge commons. This is the main reason why they must be preserved and promoted. Political Challenges A better understanding of the scope of cooperation for good governance, as well as of the development of stable forms of cooperation and the strengthening of communities and each one of their members, must be achieved. In that sense, practices favourable to the constitution of the commons should be promoted and preserved. This requires attention to the civic implications of research dynamics, as well as to co-responsibility dynamics in public and common spaces (res publica). European FPs seem to echo these political virtues by introducing the relevance of concepts such as capacity building and recognition (FP7), responsibility (FP7 and F8), and co-creation (FP8 and FP9). In general, the above-mentioned challenges demand more reflexivity concerning ends and means, particularly in relation to science education and its current promotion through science policies. It seems increasingly necessary to promote a problem-oriented education system, willing and capable of integrating a variety of perspectives and concerns –philosophical, scientific-technical, artistic, etc. More generally, technological and sociopolitical strategies must be consolidated and developed in order to promote polycentric initiatives that are sensitive to interrelation, interdependence, and communication. Examples of these strategies are found in citizen science, such as platforms, shared resources, data repositories, citizen laboratories, and support networks that connect a growing number of projects. The management of these tools requires solid foundations –such as trust-based cooperation –that build and strengthen links for the durability of resources, as well as the flourishing of communities, societies, and their members. 4 Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge Through Citizen... 73 Future Trends and Recommendations Citizen science is situated in a discussion between two poles: a certain enlightened tradition of modernity, which relies on science and progress, and the postmodern relativism that questions science itself and which today is reflected in anti-scientific attitudes and pseudoscientific practices. This is a different discussion, but closely related to, that which occurs between the experts (those who know) and the allegedly lay people (who, not infrequently, also know). The practice of citizen science presupposes a cognitive and social (pro)active involvement, so that we can truly speak of the co-creation of scientific knowledge. Many complex and/or controversial research questions –that, increasingly, cannot be fully covered by academic research –are suitable to being studied via citizen science methodologies. Thinking about an already foreseeable future, the unstoppable growth in the amount of data will increasingly lead to machine learning techniques, currently used also in citizen science (see Franzen et al., Chap. 10, this volume). However, the previous statements should not be understood or practised in an instrumentalist way. The proposal of the commons starts precisely from the premise –theoretical and empirical –that cooperation, with all that it involves, is the best solution for all concerned with matters of general interest. But its application is neither simple nor homogeneous and therefore requires continuous reflection and surveillance by communities. Citizen science has been proposed in this chapter as key to the constitution of science as a commons, by allowing the development of a multitude of projects based on cooperation for the preservation of natural or knowledge commons. The corresponding network of agents and communities not only favours the conditions of governance, sustainability, and quality of knowledge, but also comes with important cultural, social, and political changes. Understanding science –and citizen science –as a commons brings to the fore a challenge inherent in the concept. The constitution of a commons requires specific conditions that must, in turn, be created and preserved. In society in general (politics, education, art, science, sport, etc.) we need: •A better understanding of the meaning, scope, and benefits of cooperation and, consequently, the promotion of this governance model, through research, education, and policies, whether governmental or not. •A wide diffusion of the concept of the commons that transcends the public-private dichotomy, highlighting the protagonism of citizens themselves (including professional scientists and politicians) in the infinite possibilities of common spaces. In each citizen science project, the following tasks are also needed: •The establishment of rules within the communities that shape the projects. •Careful monitoring of the projects (especially the top-down ones) so that the participants are considered not as users but as collaborators, members of the research team, each one with their own responsibilities, be they major or minor. 74 M. Pelacho et al. This monitoring translates into recognition of citizen scientists both in the development of research and in the research products derived from it. •Monitoring also refers to action against free-riders who can be citizen scientists, professional scientists, managers, communicators, or politicians. Citizen science is already part of the transition towards a different culture, where cooperation is the guiding principle in all shared areas, for example, in governance models, in education, health, culture, and communication. However, this will only happen if we intend to address it in the day-to-day of each project. Since many commons have existed for decades, even centuries, we know that this proposal can be achieved. Acknowledgements Maite Pelacho’s contribution was supported by the Spanish Foundation of Science and Technology and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (FCT-18-14225). Maite is especially grateful to Javier Belastegui, predoctoral researcher at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, for his valuable comments on the content of this chapter. Hannot Rodríguez’s contribution was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund (FFI2015-69792-R), the Vice-rectorate for Research of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (PPGA19/23, and GIU19/051), and the Basque Government’s Department of Education (IT1205-19). All the authors thank the editors and reviewers for their careful and enthusiastic work. 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Citizen science and the neoliberal transformation of science –An ambivalent relationship. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 4(1), 25. https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.186. Weber, K., Pallas, F., & Ulbricht, M. R. (2019). Challenges of citizen science: Commons, incentives, organizations, and regulations. The American Journal of Bioethics, 19(8), 52–54. Maite Pelacho is a researcher and project manager at Ibercivis Foundation. She coordinates the Observatory of Citizen Science in Spain. She is currently working on her PhD research at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, on citizen science and the epistemology and the political philosophy of science, particularly on the proposal of considering science as a commons. She has a background in physics, environmental issues, education and philosophy of science. Hannot Rodríguez is an associate professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (Faculty of Arts), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. His research focuses on risk governance of emerging technologies, responsible innovation, and philosophical and social dimensions of science and technology. Fernando Broncano is a professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He works in philosophy of technology and social and political epistemology. He considers knowledge in the context of a material culture that shapes societies. Renata Kubus is an entrepreneur and researcher in innovation ecosystems, collective intelligence, citizen science, and the future of work. She is the founder of Network for Collective Intelligence Development (CID-N) and an active member of several scientific associations, including the AUDESCO/ECSA Spain and the Scientists Dating Forum. Francisco Sanz is the executive director of the Ibercivis Foundation. He has combined work as associate professor at the University of Zaragoza with research at the Institute of Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems. Since 2008, he has promoted citizen science, creating diverse projects –distributed computing, collective intelligence, and maker projects, among many others. Beatriz Gavete is a researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Zaragoza and a PhD candidate at the same university. Her research, in political philosophy, is focused on social movements, anti-hierarchical forms of organisation, and the principle of ‘the common’. 4 Science as a Commons: Improving the Governance of Knowledge Through Citizen... 77 Antonio Lafuente has researched knowledge transmission processes from the elites to lay people and from the centres to the peripheries. He is currently interested in the relationship between the commons and technology and, also, in social movements understood as cognitive agents. He is based at the History Institute (CSIC) in Spain. 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