Bridging the Participation Gap: A Toolkit for Co-designing Engaging Citizen Science Initiatives
October 5, 2026
Citizen science usually asks citizens to collect data and stops there. Who frames the question, who interprets the results, who benefits: that stays with institutions. We propose a co-design toolkit that intervenes earlier, before an app or protocol exists, to redistribute that authority and expertise. Three components of the toolkit — scenarios, reflection prompts, and field-tested tactics — push designers and researchers past “how do we get citizens to collect data” toward designing for meaningful participation and ground-up engagement. Piloted with 25 participants, it moved teams from treating “the community” as a data source to designing toward governance itself.
Designer: Irem Tekogul, Azra Sungu
