Science Ensemble

The Participatory Science and Research (PRS) Business Network of the Sorbonne University Alliance has just published the proceedings of the conference on the evaluation of PRS, which was held in July 2021.

According to the Charter of Participatory Science and Research in France, PRS are defined as "forms of scientific knowledge production in which civil society actors participate, along with researchers, in an active and deliberate way."

To date, more than 45 PRS projects have been deployed within the Sorbonne University Alliance, in partnership with a hundred or so associations and local authorities, and in disciplines as diverse as musicology, linguistics, ecology, epidemiology, history, archaeology, heritage and astronomy. These projects, with their varied territorial roots, use numerous approaches and methods of participation.

To better promote and encourage exchanges between project leaders, the Sorbonne University Alliance created the Science Together (Science Ensemble) platform in 2017. This platform a web portal and the establishment of a business network, a place for exchange and collaboration between holders of science and participatory research programs.

A portal for more visibility

The portal is composed of a space open to all, and a space reserved for network members. The public part highlights:

• A directory of projects to search for programs or observatories. The portal is designed as a "relay platform" that directs visitors to the sites of the projects presented.
• A resource center, gathering information and knowledge related to participatory sciences, shared by the community.
• A "news and events" section to communicate on the days of restitution, field trips, meetings-debates... of the various projects. 

The members of the network can access, via an individual connection, the contact information as well as the skills, disciplines and projects carried out by the other members. The objective here is to encourage interpersonal contacts on common subjects.   

Workshops to exchange practices

The animation of the Science Together professional network takes the form of workshops for the exchange of practices, the organization of seminars and the construction of collective positions. Workshops are held on a regular basis and the topics are chosen collectively. A first workshop organized in 2020 on the theme of "Bad recipes for participatory science: learning from failures". The workshop was designed to identify the difficulties encountered and the mistakes made, in order to draw lessons for a better management of these programs. Among the difficulties identified, the one related to the evaluation methods of research projects that are not in line with participatory science projects. The indicators are often limited to the number of participants or data collected, without highlighting the other contributions of these programs. 

During the following workshops, the business network worked on the construction of indicators for the evaluation of PRS programs that highlight the specificities of these projects. This work culminated in the organization of a conference open to the French-speaking PRS community on this subject in early July, the proceedings of which have been published. 

The workshops will resume this fall with exchanges on the insertion of participatory science and research in education, the appropriation of data produced by participants, and digital communication in the animation of projects.