The Universitat de València is hosting a European-funded project to strengthen citizen participation in science and technology.
Postdoctoral researcher Elena Denia, from the Institute of Social Welfare Policies at the University of Valencia (UV), launched the SCITIZEN – Science with Citizens project on 1st April, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) funded under the European Commission's Horizon Europe programme.
The Global Fellowship will allow Elena Denia to conduct two years of research at the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the Australian National University, in collaboration with Fabien Medvecky, current president of the international network Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST), and to complete a third year at the UV alongside science communication professor Carolina Moreno, leader of the UV's ScienceFlows research group.
The MSCA-PF 2024 call received 10,360 proposals from around the world, of which 1,696 (16%) were selected for funding, with a total budget of €417.2 million. In the even more competitive Global Fellowship category, only 168 projects out of 1,238 applications were funded (13.6%). SCITIZEN obtained the highest score (100%), which recognises the scientific and social potential of the proposal.
Science and Citizenship, an Inclusive Dialogue
SCITIZEN seeks to understand citizen participation in science and technology from two perspectives: how it is represented in cultural media and how it is put into practice in reality, by means of citizen science projects, institutional initiatives, or public debates on emerging issues such as artificial intelligence or climate change.
The project combines qualitative methods, science, technology, and society studies (STS) theory, and public communication activities, with the aim of promoting strategies that make citizen participation in science more inclusive and representative.
Popular Culture and Technological Futures
One of the first lines of work examines how popular culture—through film, television, literature, and the press—not only reflects different levels of citizen participation in science and technology, but also contributes to shaping social perceptions. These stories often present citizens as passive observers of the great ethical and political dilemmas of our time, when actually, these are issues that directly affect them: What role will robots play in our lives? Who controls artificial intelligence? How will biotechnology affect us?
These narratives are also part of so-called sociotechnical imaginaries, shared visions of how society should organise itself around scientific and technological development. Such imaginaries are not mere fictions: they influence how citizens imagine their techno-scientific future and, at the same time, the direction of research and political decision-making.
Impact and Innovation
SCITIZEN will contribute to strengthening the quality and legitimacy of science in dialogue with society, proposing practical criteria for integrating inclusion as a core value in citizen participation.
Along these lines, the project will develop an "inclusion scale" that will assess the extent to which different projects and debates incorporate social diversity. This tool will be available in open access for use by institutions, associations, funders, and policymakers.
A Career Between Research and Outreach
Elena Denia holds a PhD in Science Communication from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Although she is an astrophysicist by training, her research and teaching focus on the public understanding of science, scientific culture, and the philosophy of science. She has developed her career with extensive international mobility (Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Australia, and the United States), including a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Alongside her academic career, she has been awarded the 30th Prismas Casa de las Ciencias Award for Outreach and regularly participates in science communication initiatives. She was also a member of the board of directors for Science in Parliament, where she helped foster dialogue between scientists, citizens, and policymakers in an initiative that led to the creation of the first scientific advisory office in the Parliament in 2022, Office C.
As part of her commitment to outreach, she launched the video podcast Random Universe, in collaboration with Valencian writers Sergio Mars and Juan Miguel Aguilera, a space that offers a more human perspective on science by connecting it with philosophical, sociological, and cultural issues.
More information: Carolina.Moreno@uv.es
Links: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101198735
Programme: HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
