The BUA Participatory Research Map: Visualizing Collaboration Networks to Promote Citizen Engagement

Citizen and community engagement are important elements of Open Science. By collaborating with non-scientific actors, the research process becomes more accessible and inclusive, and thus contributes to the generation of new scientific knowledge as well as solutions for societal challenges. Open engagement of societal actors is also one of the key pillars in the UNESCO’s recommendation on Open Science. However, participatory research projects encompass a wide range of activities at multiple levels, of different dimensions. This raises various questions, e.g.: How can we get more systematic insight into the different approaches of participatory research, the way non-scientific actors are involved, and what kind of stakeholders collaborate? E.g., are public and university libraries involved and if so, in what way and what could be their future role? In this presentation, we would like to answer these questions by introducing the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) Participatory Research Map, created by the BUA Laboratory for Transdisciplinary Research and the BUA Open Science Magnifiers project. This interactive visualization provides an overview of ongoing and completed BUA participatory research projects in different academic fields and will provide networking opportunities. It will give insights into current developments in participatory research, e.g. on inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration networks and which scientific and non-scientific stakeholders are involved. With the creation of the BUA Participatory Research Map, we also like to gain further insights into (open) research output types of these projects, as well as to which Sustainable Development Goals the projects are contributing to. We would also like to discuss with the audience how we can further promote knowledge exchange and collaboration amongst different stakeholders, e.g. on the role libraries can play in further promoting participatory research and engaging society in the research process.