Escalator Model. Various institutions and organisations spread around Europe have joined together to work on this project with an aim of elevating passive engagement with science into active participation. The project will support and build upon DIY, grassroots, and frugal innovation initiatives so that in the short and medium term we build, sustain and promote the long term effects of these grassroots efforts towards policy makers. A central model to DITOs is the ‘escalator’ of participation (Figure 1) in which a citizen in any walk of life may become aware of different levels of participation and choose that which is best for them, while being encouraged to try other levels - either toward higher or lower levels of engagement, in accordance to their needs, interests and availability of free time. Such participation and step-changing will help science outreach, innovation, research and problem solving move from a top-down model, in which it is driven by institutions, to a bottom-up model, where it is shared by active public participation at various levels of scientific engagement. This dissemination plan defines how we will communicate both our events and the lessons we learn from them to the general public, science practitioners, institutions, policy makers, the academic community and many other stakeholders in order to implement the concept of the virtual ‘escalator’.
Escalator Model. The overall objective of WP1 is to engage citizens, scientists and policy makers in shaping and conducting research in biodesign. The challenge of public engagement will be addressed by using a virtual escalator model. This enables people to decide which level of contribution is suitable for them, while gently exposing them and encouraging them to move to the next level. They may choose just to install software on their computer or phone and use its sensors with very little intervention (Intensity Level 1 - Crowdsourcing) in applications such as monitoring air pollution, where the phone is setup to report the measurements. At the next level (Level 2 - Distributed intelligence), participants use their cognitive capacity – e.g. engaging in serious games and citizen science activities at Medialab Xxxxx (MP). At the next level (Level 3 - Participatory science) participants are engaged in defining the problem that will be explored, in collaboration with scientists, by collecting and analysing data for example. Examples include ecological observations conducted within the ECSA network in which participants work with scientists in activities such as BioBlitz, where community members concentrate on a small area and record biodiversity in minute details. DIY science operates at Level 4 – DIY Science, the level that can potentially most empower participants and increase their capabilities.2 Level 1 ‘Crowdsourcing” Citizens as sensors or contributing computing computer resources Level 2 ‘Distributed intelligence’ Citizens as basic interpreters Level 3 ‘Participatory science” Participation in problem definition and data collection Level 4 ‘DIY Science’ Collaborative science - problem definition, experiment design and/or execution, data analysis The range of ways citizens participate in science. We stress the point that we encourage people to become actively involved in scientific practices. There is no value judgment that Level 4 is necessarily better than Level 1, nor do we believe that all participants should operate at a DIY science level. Different issues, scientific problems, personal interests, socio-economic conditions, time constraints, and social circumstances all influence the level at which each participant chooses to operate. The aim of facilitators, scientists and policy makers should be to enable people to move smoothly to the level that suits their needs. The escalator model is described in the grant agreement 1.
