Citizen Social Science in Germany—cooperation beyond invited and uninvited participation

The article investigates who contributes to, and how participants contribute to, participatory research in the social sciences and humanities in Germany. It addresses a dynamic, diverse ecosystem of participation approaches where the label “Citizen Science” is only partly adopted; alternative framings persist and mix with CS concepts. The research question is: What are key characteristics of CSS activities in Germany, who is involved, and in what ways? Using Brian Wynne’s framework of invited and uninvited participation as a sensitising concept, the study examines how initiation contexts and power dynamics shape participation. However, given the nuance observed in practice and the presence of intermediate forms of collaboration, the study adopts an organisational perspective focusing on actors (individual and collective) and consortia, distinguishing activities originating inside academic institutions and outside them, to empirically map how CSS functions and who is involved.

Existing literature depicts CSS as growing but less prevalent than natural science CS, while still core to the CS field. Programmatic debates highlight benefits (e.g., interdisciplinarity, data mobilisation, new methods, increased impact), opportunities for publics (knowledge for decision-making, sustainability transitions, amateur talent), and challenges (diverse motivations, ethics, relations between professionals and non-professionals, evaluation, terminology). Empirical work remains limited, including literature reviews on roles of SSH in CS, practice-based reports, case descriptions, emerging methodological debates, and meta-research on epistemic cultures. The (un)invited participation distinction informs CS discourse (e.g., crowd-sourcing vs. resistance), yet practice spans a spectrum including collaborative and co-created projects, with roles and power changing over time and additional contributors (e.g., CSOs) playing vital roles. The study contributes by examining actual CSS practices, actors, and activities in Germany, across pioneering CSS/citizen humanities, longstanding participatory traditions (e.g., PAR, amateur humanities), and transdisciplinary sustainability research.

Exploratory mixed-methods study comprising document analysis, an online survey, and semi-structured interviews. Document analysis: Reviewed scientific and practice literature, news, and websites to systematise CSS in Germany across four criteria, identifying diverse participatory approaches in SSH and informing a broad working definition of CSS: method-guided knowledge generation within SSH involving cooperation between professional and non-professional researchers. Survey: Identified CSS activities via thesaurus-led searches of literature, national CS repository, and funding schemes. Applied the working definition to select initiatives. Invitations sent April–May 2019 to 96 activities; 12 unreachable, 7 excluded as non-CSS, yielding 77; 57 responded fully or partially (74% response rate). Collected data on project duration, aims, funding, actor constellations, topics, participants, and participation across research stages. Interviews: Ten CSS activities purposively selected for balance (inside/outside academia, themes, methods). Between Sep–Nov 2019, conducted 19 interviews: 11 coordinators and 8 non-professional researchers (5 academic-led, 5 non-academic-led). Sought to interview both coordinator and co-researcher per activity. Included insights from participant observation in national C(S)S networking to identify civil society-led projects. Held a reflection workshop (Jan 2020) with interviewees and experts to discuss intermediate results and refine analysis. Ethics: informed consent and data protection per institutional and national guidelines.

• CSS approaches and goals: Three groups in Germany: (1) pioneering CSS and citizen humanities (often within universities and GLAMs), (2) longstanding participatory and amateur traditions (e.g., amateur archaeology, public history; PAR), and (3) transdisciplinary sustainability research. Among the 57 surveyed activities, about half aimed to mobilise citizen participation; about half prioritised doing science/gaining knowledge; 43% emphasised generating innovations or practical benefits. Doing science/gaining knowledge was more salient in academic-initiated projects (57%) than non-academic (38%). Topics clustered into politics and society (~two-thirds of projects: public services, mobility, democracy, demography, health, integration, sustainability, digitisation) and history and culture (~one-third: urban/local history, genealogy, archaeology). Education was important across activities.
• Participants (co-researchers): Number per activity ranged from 2 to 3061; average 35. Majority were employed (63%); retirees 41%; pupils/students about one-third; unemployed rarely involved. Most co-researchers were over 50; under-19s involved in 16% of projects. Motivations included interest in the topic, alignment with personal values (e.g., sustainability), enjoyment of learning, and influencing local/social developments; benefits included community experience and new contacts. Explicit interest in scientific work was infrequent. Time constraints were the main barrier; few projects offered flexible participation intensities. Financial or qualification incentives (expense allowances, tax benefits, certificates) were largely unused.
• Participation across research stages: Most frequent involvement in data acquisition/collection (63%). Respondents cited, on average, 2–3 research steps per project, indicating broader engagement than pure crowdsourcing. Differences between academic vs. non-academic origins: academic projects involved co-researchers more in research design (41% vs. 14%), data collection (67% vs. 57%), and generating new data (67% vs. 48%); non-academic projects involved co-researchers more in formulating results (62% vs. 44%) and publishing (52% vs. 30%). Little difference for research question formulation, data analysis, and governance.
• Terminology: In CSS, terms “co-researchers” and “honorary researchers” (Ehrenamtliche) were common; “Citizen Scientist” was used infrequently due to perceived ambiguity, English terminology, or discouraging reference to “science.”
• Funding and duration: About three-quarters of activities received public/state funding; about two-thirds received federal government/ministry funding; ~20% received state (Länder) ministry funding. Academic-origin projects sometimes received EU funding (~10%); non-academic projects did not. Non-academic projects more often received city/local government funding; private funding (business, donors, crowdfunding) was rare. Most relied on project-based financing; only 2/10 interviewed cases (one academic, one non-academic) had long-term funding. Funding rarely covered all necessary work, with early phases and gaps between projects bridged by unpaid extra work by professional scientists, CSO staff, and local government; non-professional researchers’ voluntary work was seldom compensated. Durations: almost two-thirds lasted up to 5 years. Non-academic-origin activities more often exceeded 5 years or were unlimited (46%); academic-origin were mainly 2–5 years (48%). Durations under 4 years were viewed as counterproductive for sustaining research, cooperation, and infrastructures.
• Consortia composition and roles: CSS activities typically involved consortia averaging 4 organisations, usually mixing academic and non-academic partners. Higher education institutions participated in ~70% of projects; CSOs and city/local governments in just over half; non-university research institutions in slightly less than half. Initiation was often by a single entity (70% with one initiator): universities initiated ~40%; CSOs and local authorities about ~20% each. Overall, initiation split roughly evenly between academic (54%) and non-academic (46%) origins. Leadership roles were frequently taken by universities and city/local governments; CSOs led in about one-third of cases in which they participated. Educational organisations, higher-level public administration, and private organisations were more often in advisory roles. CSOs frequently acted as intermediaries to recruit and support co-researchers, contrasting with many natural science CS models where individuals engage directly via digital media.
• Beyond participation: Additional contributors identified include CSO staff (co-design, leadership, recruitment, science education, advisory roles), municipal staff (topic and place-based involvement), university students (as researchers-in-training and as co-researchers), and other institutions (teachers/schools, state agencies, cross-sector initiatives). Additional essential activities include: science communication (diverse formats; often led by non-academic partners and co-researchers, fostering visible impact and empowerment), project management (varied coordinators across academic and CSO hierarchies), and intermediation/networking (teachers, mayors, supervisors linking actors; sometimes central leadership function). These activities are core to research success, not merely auxiliary.
• Conceptual implication: The invited/uninvited participation dichotomy inadequately captures CSS practice; many initiatives occupy intermediate, cooperative forms, with heterogeneous consortia and shifting power dynamics. A broader focus on cooperation and “cooperation capacity” is proposed to better understand and support CSS.

The study addresses who contributes to CSS in Germany and how by mapping actors, activities, and organisational contexts. Findings show CSS spans heterogeneous consortia that frequently combine universities, CSOs, and municipal actors, with cooperation extending beyond volunteer participation to include project management, science communication, and intermediation. Co-researcher involvement typically centres on data collection but commonly includes multiple research stages; academic-origin projects engage more in design and data generation, while non-academic-origin projects involve co-researchers more in results formulation and publishing. Funding structures rely heavily on public, project-based support, creating gaps bridged by unpaid or undercompensated labour across actor groups. These dynamics challenge the sufficiency of the invited/uninvited participation model, revealing a spectrum of cooperative arrangements where intermediaries and institutional constraints (e.g., funding rules, publishing norms) shape roles and power. Recognising additional contributors (CSO staff, municipal staff, students, teachers) and additional activities essential to research success reframes CSS from “capacitating lay participation” towards facilitating cooperation in consortia. This perspective helps explain successes (e.g., effective recruitment via CSOs, impactful communication) and tensions (e.g., tokenistic CSO inclusion, managerial overload for scientists), and underscores the need to analyse cooperation capacity to improve design, support, and evaluation of CSS.

The paper maps CSS in Germany and demonstrates that CSS is characterised by diverse, heterogeneous consortia where cooperation between academic and non-academic actors is central. It contributes an empirically grounded shift from a focus on invited/uninvited participation to a cooperation-oriented lens, highlighting additional contributors (CSOs, municipalities, students, educators) and essential activities (science communication, project management, intermediation) that underpin research success. The authors propose “cooperation capacity” as a heuristic to study how actors establish and manage relations within and across consortia to produce knowledge. Future research should include ethnographic studies to illuminate power dynamics, tokenism, and negotiations; explore diversity and the use of online platforms; compare CSS consortia to other multi-stakeholder, open participation fields; and examine boundaries between volunteers and organisers. For practice and policy, implications include adapting funding requirements to better support CSOs and municipalities, recognising and resourcing intermediation and communication roles, and broadening evaluation to include cooperation processes and capacities.

The study is exploratory and based primarily on self-reported survey and interview data from a purposive sample of German CSS initiatives; findings may not generalise beyond this context. Limited demographic and socioeconomic data constrain analysis of diversity and equity among participants. Project documentation and institutional constraints (e.g., funding rules allowing only academic leads) can obscure co-initiation and shared contributions, potentially underrepresenting non-academic leadership. Reliance on project-based funding and time-limited initiatives limits observation of long-term sustainability and impacts. Power dynamics, role negotiations, and boundary work are inferred rather than ethnographically observed; further in-depth qualitative research is needed.