GROW Citizens’ Observatory Framework: A reference and guidelines for community platforms to generate, share and utilise information to address community, science, policy and innovation challenges

The report introduces and positions a framework for delivery, evaluation and replication of a Citizens’ Observatory (CO). The framework is designed to be implemented in the EC H2020 programme, and to underpin and support the emergence of a sustainable ecosystem of COs. The output introduces a definition of COs as community platforms for citizens to generate, share and utilise information to address community, science, policy and innovation challenges. It positions COs at the intersection of research and practice in participatory digital culture, citizen science and earth observation. The vision is to create a movement around environmental observations, to inform and empower citizens to participate in environmental decision making, to extend and reduce costs in global earth observation activities, and to lead towards more inclusive, sustainable and technology enabled economic development. COs can potentially offer one way for individuals and communities to adopt a more active relationship to the environment, and to develop services derived from the data, for the citizens as well as science and policy. In GROW, the concept is to support the emergence of a mass movement of participatory citizens generating, sharing, utilising data and knowledge on growing and the land, leading to more sustainable land use practices, smart soil and land governance and policy, and a unique data repository for science. GROW creates a proposition around newly available and powerful consumer sensing technology, a strong science and policy narrative, and the collective power of shared and open data and knowledge. The output reports on research into best practices in methods, factors and tools for successful COs. The research has reviewed key insights from the literature on these and other related disciplines. It also reports on pilot activity delivered in the first year of the GROW project, and insights developed through this practice that further underpin the framework.