The overall objective of ECS is to widen and strengthen the European Citizen Science community through capacity building and awareness raising activities such as the creation of a European Citizen Science Academy and the establishment of a network of 28 ECS Ambassadors.

Citizen science is an umbrella term. It describes a range of ways to involve citizens and societal actors such as NGOs in collaborative knowledge production: crowdsourcing research questions, collective data gathering and analysis (to name a few examples).

Citizen science has recently become a widely used term, but what does it mean exactly? How does citizen science compare to crowdsourcing? And where does community archaeology stand in this discussion?

From where litter ends up to which languages are spoken in Leiden and The Hague: over 50 interesting, surprising, complex and entertaining questions were sent in for the Citizen Science project to mark our 444th anniversary. Not one but two Citizen Science projects will be starting this year in Leiden…

The ERC project 'Food citizens?' is a comparative analysis of a growing phenomenon in Europe: collective food procurement, namely networks of people who organize direct food production, distribution, and consumption.

The Citizen Science Lab brings together scientists, citizens and community stakeholders to arrive at new insights for both science and society through citizen science.

In citizen science projects, citizens and scientists work together to develop new scientific knowledge.

Leiden University's Citizen Science Lab supports and organizes initiatives where anyone can get started with scientific data and research. This is how we enrich research with insights from the community, make science accessible to all, and tackle important local issues together.

This year Leiden University exists for 444 years! This will be celebrated together with the residents of Leiden and The Hague during various activities. One of these is scientists and residents doing research on plastics and psychology together.

CitiObs will consolidate and apply tools and practice-based knowledge for co-creating data, knowledge and local action regarding the environmental impacts of climate change and human activity in the urban context via Citizen Observatories.

Living labs make it possible for citizens to participate in research for sustainable development of their environment. This way citizens, together with scientists and stakeholders, create local conditions for food production, healthy environment, and biodiversity.

Petra van der Bekerom, Joris van der Voet, and Johan Christensen, three assistant professors at Leiden University, conducted a large-scale survey experiment about whether citizens are more negative about failing service delivery than private organizations.

Emily Wolff, PhD candidate at Leiden University, wrote a paper about the inclusion of imperial citizens in the Dutch post-war welfare state.

This book argues that the combined literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence supports the theory that early-imperial Italy had about six million inhabitants.

In this article, Meier & Nadler suggest that while non-citizen enfranchisement boosts participation across all citizens, citizens with immigration backgrounds are more reactive to the NCV rights in terms of higher turnout. In this way, the paper adds a critical nuance to individual-based explanations…

Facilitating direct citizen participation through online channels is considered as an opportunity for including harder to reach groups in participation.

Cristina Grasseni, Federico de Musso, Ola Gracjasz, Maria Vasile, Vincent Walstra and Marilena Poulopoulou are part of the 'Food citizens?' Research project.

In countries with complex domestic situations, citizens have little opportunity to exercise influence on governance and policy. Leiden academics research these situations and share their insights with the public, such as in Nigeria for instance. This enables the people and their communities to improve…

The project 'Food citizens?' examines the consequences and premises of collective food procurement in three European cities (Rotterdam, Turin, and Gdańsk).

Terrorism only poses a small risk to people but tends to be a major source of public fear. Through fear, terrorism has far-reaching implications for public governance.

The NestWacht project is a Citizen Science collaboration between Science Centre Delft, Naturalis, and the Citizen Science Lab of Leiden University to engage individuals, families and primary schools in Leiden and Delft in scientific research on the impact of climate change on nature in their city, and…

To understand which groups turn against their government, you need to understand the political culture in which they grew up, what they expect from a ‘state’ and what alternatives there are. With its long interdisciplinary experience, ASCL is often considered to be a regional expertise centre. But this…

The objective of this study is to better understand the distribution of microplastics in the environment. More specifically, we will quantify the abundance and distribution of microplastics on beaches.

Leiden researchers study the extent to which Asian citizens can invoke the rights that they have on paper. This knowledge helps them advise the different levels of government and NGOs on how to improve the lot of poor citizens in particular.

Public management scholars have long debated public and private sector differences. However, the generalizability of empirical results has been limited due to the shortage of cross-national studies.

Jan Aart Scholte, Professor Global Transformations and Governance Challenges, is a co-author of this book that offers the first full comparative study of citizen and elite legitimacy beliefs toward global governance.

What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday state-citizen relations?

Democratic citizenship refers to the capacity and willingness of citizens to actively influence the functioning of state institutions. While considered a vital correlate of democratization and the rule of law, its largely western-oriented literature rarely studies the forms of democratic citizenship…

Cristina Grasseni’s project

The idea of citizens and public professionals collaborating to provide public services has widely spread in several countries around the globe. Co-production is often presented as the go-to solution for challenges like a legitimacy crisis of both the government and the market, and financial concerns.…

Government impartiality is considered a core feature of quality of government, and one that leads to favorable macro‐level outcomes. We have limited knowledge, however, of how impartiality affects citizens' perceptions of public service quality. In particular, we do not know how the impacts of impartiality…

Data science offers exciting new instruments for governments to reach out to citizens, for example by using data-driven information channels, providing real-time simulations, or personalizing services based on citizen data. At the same time, the possibilities and use of data science methods can have…

It is often claimed that social media can contribute to democratic decision-making by bringing politicians and citizens into dialogue with one another. But is this potential always realised, and how? Most researchers look at politicians and their online communication strategies. In this New Media &…

In this article, Martin Sievert and Jonas Bruder investigated whether and how administrative burdens influences citizens' perceptions of welfare policies and attitudes towards beneficiaries.

This article aims to contribute to the debate about citizen involvement in medical and social issues by studying co-production initiatives in The Hague.

This article studies the influence of framing on preferences for cooperation with the EU.

This project explores how the populations of the historically contiguous towns of Nusaybin, Turkey and Qamishle, Syria articulate citizenship in the everyday.

In recent years, the question why citizens (do not) support democratic innovations has attracted increasing academic attention. In this research note, Van Der Does & Kantorowicz for the first time empirically verify what drives citizens’ instrumental considerations in their evaluation of a DI.

Moritz Jesse, Associate Professor of EU Law at the Europa Institute, has published his book, “The Civic Citizens of Europe: The Legal Potential for Immigrant Integration in the EU, Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom”.

From how litter spreads to which languages are spoken in Leiden and The Hague: over 50 interesting, surprising, complex and entertaining questions were sent in for the Citizen Science Project to mark our 444th anniversary.

How can the Indonesian National Ombudsman make the transition from autonomous to responsive justice in view of the day-to-day challenges it is faced with?

Mapping out the problem of plastic pollution requires a lot of data over a large area. That's why scientists are increasingly turning to volunteers for help, also known as citizen science. But what are the challenges for a researcher when he or she involves the public in research in this way? Four Leiden…

This article investigates the causes and examines how differing public perceptions of the rule of law contribute to this trend.

How many species of butterfly are living in my garden? Do I recognise the Leiden dialect? What is the air quality like in my area? Do you have a question about something that affects you, your neighbours or the whole city of Leiden or The Hague? Residents and scientists have until 15 March 2019 to send…

What motivates citizen scientists in the Schone Rivieren project to contribute? How does their motivation, attitude and knowledge change over the years? Are there differences in motivation and attitude between different groups of volunteers (clean up vs. monitoring; long-term vs. short-term)?

Last Tuesday 20 February, the first Public Administration Alumniactivity took place, with the theme: Citizen participation in theory and practice. Carola van Eijk talked about her PhD Research 'Engagement of citizens and public professors in the co-production of public services.' Menno Spaan, founder…

Mr. Ade Jaya Suryani defended his thesis on 28 January 2021

The new open access book The Science of Citizen Science bundles insights into science that is conducted together with citizens, to promote this growing form of science.

People are keen to make a contribution that will be valuable for scientific research. Many thousands are taking part in the Major Flu Survey. Leiden researcher Anne Land is publishing on this subject in the Journal of Science Communication.

On Friday 4th February 2022 we welcomed in hybrid format (in person and online live streaming) 154 registered participants, of which 97 online, to present the first results of the Food Citizens? ERC Consolidator project.