Scientists' attitudes about citizen science at Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites

A profound transformation, in recent decades, is promoting shifts in the waysecological science is produced and shared; as such, ecologists are increasinglyencouraged to engage in dialogues with multiple stakeholders and intransdisciplinary research. Among the different forms of public engagement,citizen science (CS) has significant potential to support science-societyinteractions with mutual benefits. While many studies have focused on theexperience and motivations of CS volunteers, scarce literature investigating theperspectives of researchers is available. The main purpose of this paper is to betterunderstand scientists' attitudes about CS in the context of its potential to supportoutcomes that extent beyond more traditional ones focused on promotingscience knowledge and interest. We surveyed the scientific communitybelonging to the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) networkbecause ILTER is of interest to multiple stakeholders and occurs over long timescales. Via an online questionnaire, we asked ILTER scientists about theirwillingness to participate in different types of public engagement, their reasonsfor participating in CS, the associated barriers, and any impacts of these efforts onthem. Our findings show that many ILTER scientists are open to participating in CSfor a wide range of reasons; the dominant ones involve deeper public engagementand collaboration. The barriers of greatest concern of these respondents were thelack of institutional support to start and run a CS project and the difficulty ofestablishing long-term stable relationships with the public. They reported impactsof CS activities on how they pursue their work and acknowledged the benefit ofopportunities to learn from the public. The emerging picture from this research isof a community willing and actively involved in many CS projects for bothtraditional reasons, such as data gathering and public education, and expandedreasons that activate a real two-way cooperation with the public. In the ILTERcommunity, CS may thus become an opportunity to promote and developpartnerships with citizens, helping to advance the science-society interfaceand to rediscover and enhance the human and social dimension of thescientific work.