The Role of Stakeholder Engagement in Citizen Science Policy Development in Finland

About

The presentation explores open science policy development in Finland in the context of stakeholder engagement and the creation of the first national policy recommendation for citizen science with focus on measuring impact and community engagement.

The presentation is based on two 2025 studies. First study is established on the shift of responsibility for coordinating open science in Finland from the Ministry of Education and Culture to the Finnish research community, specifically the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV). We examined documents from the TSV citizen science working group, including meeting notes, survey results, and the final policy paper, to understand how stakeholder participation influenced the policy-making process.

The second study examines the impact that the recommendation had on the stakeholders. We examined survey results, and the performance of citizen science indicators based on the recommendation from the national open science and research monitoring results from 2024 to explore the impact of the recommendation.

The results show that involving stakeholders helped shape policy recommendations, especially in improving institutional support, guidelines, and funding visibility for citizen science. However, challenges like uneven awareness and engagement among stakeholders could limit the effectiveness of participatory approaches. By placing these findings within the context of participatory policymaking and stakeholder theory, the presentation provides insights into how inclusive policy design works and how participatory governance and science policy development can be integrated into institutional frameworks to drive change..

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