The citizen science cycle has grown intensively in the last year, particularly as we are carrying out a pilot project for bringing citizen science to schools with the Ministry of Education of the City of Buenos Aires and the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), and launching a report with findings of two experiments regarding environmental citizen science and its effects on participants, governance, and innovation. From what we have worked so far in this new cycle, we can highlight the following:   - Citizen science represents an innovative pedagogical tool: Citizen science can be used with an educational focus, as it has great potential to enhance science education (concepts, processes, etc.), stimulate scientific and technical vocations, and promote hands-on learning at an early age. Additionally, it allows for the integration of different subjects, teachers, and students in medium to long-term multidisciplinary projects and encourages children and teenagers to become active participants in research processes in the present, among other benefits.   - Engagement, inclusion and plurality: Citizen science effectively promotes individual changes by including participants with various levels of information and motivation regarding the issue. Segmenting and targeting diverse groups —varying in age, gender, education, and interest levels— can enhance the positive effects of citizen science in all its efficacy. These activities not only provide a comprehensive understanding of citizens' needs but also foster deeper mutual understanding between governments and citizenry which underscore its governance implications.   - Government capacity building: Citizen science can lead to a systemic approach in policy making and delivery, as it shapes such an approach, for instance, to environmental challenges, spurring innovation and coordination across sectors. It motivates officials to undertake new actions and policies and it fosters the adoption of citizen science tools because they are usually very user-friendly. Also, the collaborative and collective intelligence-based approach of citizen science results in a greater involvement of officials in the tool design process, as solutions are tailored to meet specific needs. This approach enables officials to generate more diverse, accurate, and extensive data efficiently. Crowdsourcing, gamification, and digital tools allow governments to count on new data collected by citizens and by officials with or without previous knowledge. This issue is crucial given the fact that usually governments lack funds and trained human resources to collect data needed for evidence-based policy making.  - Citizen science promotes innovation: Citizen science can become a means to facilitate the adoption or co-creation of new solutions, approaches, and tools to address the needs and concerns of individuals, organizations, and governments. In this way, this approach can drive changes in how problems are addressed, such as fostering greater levels of coordination between different government departments. Small-scale experiments, pilot projects, and prototypes also allow for quick testing of solutions, generating valuable input for public policy formulation and development strategies.  - Citizen science promotes participation: It influences the government agenda and serves the activism present in communities to channel the interests or address citizens' demands or concerns, such as water quality or floodings. Thus, citizen science promotes participation mechanisms that can contribute to the production of evidence to shed light on emerging or other well-known but neglected issues. In fact, large-scale data collection and visualization can be a way to draw the society's or governments' attention to certain topics and recognize the importance of certain issues affecting or concerning individuals, organized groups, and communities in their territories. 

Through the citizen science learning cycle —exploration, solutions mapping, and experimentation— and the portfolio of actions developed with partners, Co_Lab joined a collective and heterogeneous movement favoring the growth of citizen science in Argentina and, eventually, the whole region. For Co_Lab, it all started with a pilot project carried out to measure air quality with the help of cyclists —who had circulation permits during the COVID-19 lockdown— and together with open-seneca, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Argentina and the Government of the City of Buenos Aires. This first step led to a citizen science solutions mapping with the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, whose initial focus was the environment. That solutions mapping, which collaboratively grows, led to the inclusion of the issue on the agenda and in the design of a National Citizen Science Program, which presented a call for proposals to finance projects. Today, 100 national initiatives have already been mapped. Co_Lab also experimented with two citizen science solutions in partnership with 4 local governments: Mercedes, San Antonio de Areco, Balcarce, and Quilmes, in the province of Buenos Aires. The first experiment was an initiative to separate household waste and evaluate the effects on people's commitment and predisposition to care for the environment. The second was an experience for the mapping of freshwater ecosystems through an app collecting georeferenced environmental data.   Among other lines of action, Co_Lab provides support to the Ministry of Education of the City of Buenos Aires to implement the Citizen Science in Schools Program. This Program deploys three citizen science projects in 57 schools  to work with more than 100 teachers and 1 000 students to measure the City's air quality using passive tubes installed in schools strategically distributed throughout the City; monitor, forecast and generate weather alerts linked to hydrometeorological events; and map the earth's magnetic field through a mobile application.   The AccLab also collaborates with other laboratories to help citizen science grow across national borders. In fact, in Peru, the solutions mapping strategy is being scaled up.

United Nations Development Program & Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Argentina (2023). 100 Initiatives of Citizen Science. Solutions Mapping. Third Edition. Buenos Aires: UNDP. Available at: https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/publicaciones/solutions-mapping-100-initiatives-argentina-citizen-science    Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo y Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación de Argentina (2023). 100 Iniciativas de Ciencia Ciudadana.  Mapeo nacional. Tercera Edición. Buenos Aires: PNUD. Disponible en: https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/publicaciones/mapeo-de-soluciones-100-iniciativas-de-ciencia-ciudadana-argentina    Moreno, M.V. (2023, November 09). The schools of the City of Buenos Aires Incorporate citizen science into the classrooms. UNDP Argentina.  Available at https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/blog/schools-city-buenos-aires-incorporate-citizen-science-classrooms    Moreno, M. V. (24 de octubre de 2023). Las escuelas de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires incorporan la ciencia ciudadana en las aulas. PNUD Argentina.  Disponible en https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/blog/las-escuelas-de-la-ciudad-de-buenos-aires-incorporan-la-ciencia-ciudadana-en-las-aulas    Moscovich, L., Castells, F. A., Cochero, J., Cazenave, M., Moreno, M. V. & Zarrabeitía, C. (2023). Environmental Citizen Science and its Effects on Participants, Governance, and Innovation. Evidence of Two Small-Scale Experiments. Buenos Aires: UNDP. Available at: https://www.undp.org/es/citizen_science_experimentation_    United Nations Development Program & Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Argentina (2022). Citizen Science. Solutions mapping. Second Edition. Buenos Aires: UNDP. Available at: https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2022-10/FichasCienciaCiudadana_en_0.pdf    Moreno, M. V., D’Onofrio, M.G., Ruiz Rivadeneira, R., Sambeth Outón, B., Moscovich, L. & Markstein, L. (2022). Citizen Science and Collective Participation: Lessons Learned from the First Edition of the Environmental Citizen Science Solutions Mapping. Buenos Aires: UNDP. Available at: https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2022-10/Colab_2022_mayo_reportemapeo_v16_ENG.pdf    Acosta, M., Zapata, M., López Lanhozo, P., Moreno, V. & Moscovich, L. (2022) Citizen Science  Exploring its trends and its role in sustainable development. Buenos Aires: UNDP. Available at: https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2022-07/undp-arg-citizen-science-exploring-english-25.07.22.pdf    United Nations Development Program & Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Argentina (2021). Environmental Citizen Science: Mapping of national initiatives. Buenos Aires: UNDP. Available at: https://www.ar.undp.org/content/argentina/es/home/library/hiv_aids/CiaCiudadanaAmbiental.html    Moscovich, L. & Aun Castells, F. (October 19, 2022). A simple solution for a complex problem: Citizen science, environmental policies and awareness. UNDP Argentina. Available at: https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/blog/simple-solution-complex-problem-citizen-science-environmental-policies-and-awareness     Moreno, M. V. (December 7, 2021). Environmental citizen science in Argentina: mapping as an enhancement. UNDP Argentina. Available at: https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/blog/environmental-citizen-science-argentina-mapping-enhancement    Moreno, M.V. (August 25, 2021). People are not datasets. Citizen science and collective intelligence. UNDP Argentina. Available at: https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/blog/people-are-not-datasets-citizen-science-and-collective-intelligence    Acosta, M. (March 17, 2021). Can citizen science become a development tool? UNDP Argentina. Available at: https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/blog/can-citizen-science-become-development-tool    Acosta, M. (July 13, 2020). Citizen science for environmental policymaking. Join us! UNDP Argentina. Available at: https://www.undp.org/es/argentina/blog/citizen-science-environmental-policymaking-join-us 

We have chosen them because of their success in the previous stages of the cycle. Mapping solutions and in-depth interviews allow us to consolidate the knowledge on citizen science solutions, gathering insights from direct sources. In addition, we carry out interviews for better designing the pilot project of citizen science in schools. This last initiative entails conducting experiments regarding geomagnetic fields, air quality, and flood measurements.   Furthermore, we have analyzed and published the data generated in two experiments this year. These were both new sources of data and primary sources produced by the Co_Lab. We worked with experimental surveys, and also with an app to crowdsource data on aquatic ecosystems.   The first of these experiments was an initiative to separate household waste to evaluate its effects on the commitment and predisposition of people to care for the environment. The second experiment was a crowdsourcing experience in aquatic ecosystems, using a mobile app that creates georeferenced environmental quality indicators. This sought to gather data about the effects of citizen science on environmental governance, on increasing the quantity and quality of information obtained, and on promoting innovation in local environmental policies. In all three cities where the app was deployed, it helped to collect valuable information about the state of their aquatic ecosystems. In addition, we obtained qualitative evidence of greater coordination across government areas to work on these policies. In the city where citizens took part in the mapping, the resulting data reflected a greater diversity of views and experiences on the natural environment.

We had the chance to test all the potential of citizen science as a means for different aims. This allowed us to apply it as an educational means to help teachers and students to work with a cross subject project and learn through approaches emphasizing the systemic dynamic of certain complex issues. This systematic approach was also fostered by using an app that helped to gather information about aquatic ecosystems usually addressed by different parts of the local bureaucracies in a silo/fragmented way.   The use of citizen science allows us also to foster the adoption of new tools and technologies both by teachers and functionaries in their daily activities.    Another proxy for the potential of citizen science to address complex problems at different levels of the system is that it helps to work at an individual level, impacting in predispositions and also in learning processes and at an organizational level, leveraging the capacity of governments and schools.    Moreover, the ongoing citizen science solutions mapping not only gave place to a new national policy that granted funds to selected citizen science initiatives, but also had a performative effect on the ecosystem of citizen science now under the umbrella of this program. It is worth noting that the first National Citizen Science Convention gathered leaders of initiatives of different parts of the country in a two day activity that facilitated the diffusion of this approach. At that convention, we moderated a panel featuring 9 citizen science projects.  Furthermore, the new cross-country collaboration will extend the citizen science work to the lab of Perú, fostering regional cooperation. We gave a keynote presentation at the Innovation Week in Peru (Lima) to share our journey in citizen science. Later, the Perú AccLab was invited to the National Citizen Science Convention in Argentina. In both missions, we worked to outline the steps for the citizen science solution mapping growing phase. The goal is to scale it up in Perú. Additionally, we are assessing new opportunities to expand this cross-country cooperation into new lines of action.  The selected methods allowed us to increase our understanding of collaborative dynamics in Citizen Science and learn about new examples, which in turn allowed new articulations with partners

Thanks to the interplay of these elements, our work on citizen science has grown in reach and impact. The AccLab has become a relevant player in the national conversation on citizen science. The solution mapping not only contributed to make sense of the state of citizen science in the country, but also encouraged a greater collaboration between the stakeholders working on (or with interest in) the topic. The experiments created evidence useful for designing and planning environmental citizen science projects. The horizon scanning created insights into trends and patterns in citizen science. In partnership with the MINCYT, we have already launched two editions of citizen science solution mapping with 55 projects identified. Since solution mapping is growing collaboratively, this year we launched the third edition, reaching 100 mapped projects. The MINCYT started a citizen science national program. This year we worked together with the subnational government of the City of Buenos Aires on a pilot project for bringing citizen science to schools. Also, this year the AccLab started a cross county collaboration with the Perú AccLab. At first, we will support the growth of the citizen science solutions mapping in Perú, and we are also evaluating other possibilities of collaboration.