Air Quality Matters
Air Quality Matters inside our buildings and out.
This Podcast is about Indoor Air Quality, Outdoor Air Quality, Ventilation, and Health in our homes, workplaces, and education settings.
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The conversations we have and how we share this knowledge is the key to our success.
We speak with the leaders at the heart of this sector about them and their work, innovation and where this is all going.
Air quality is the single most significant environmental risk we face to our health and wellbeing, and its impacts on us, our friends, our families, and society are profound.
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Air Quality Matters
Air Quality Matters
#40 - Sarah West: Bridging Citizen Science and Environmental Research - Stakeholder Engagement, Ethical Considerations, and Air Quality Initiatives
A conversation with Sarah West
Have you ever wondered how volunteers can transform scientific research?
We explore the essential principles and transformative impact of involving everyday people in air quality research. From monitoring air pollution to engaging UK schools and homes, Sarah shares her invaluable insights and real-world experiences, revealing how citizen science bridges the gap between volunteers and professional researchers to tackle environmental challenges.
Engaging with volunteers is more than just gathering data—it's about meaningful collaboration and ethical considerations. Learn about the complexities of volunteer engagement, the importance of aligning interests and scientific goals, and managing expectations.
How effective communication and personal interactions can make or break a project. Sarah's expertise highlights how to navigate ethical challenges, maintain participant agency, and mitigate risks, ensuring that citizen science remains impactful and respectful.
Sarah West - LinkedIn
Sarah West - SEI
SEI Ten Principles
SAMHE
Ingenious
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Air Quality Matters and I believe we already have the tools and knowledge we need to make a difference. The conversations we have and how we share what we know is the key to our success. I'm Simon Jones and this is episode 40 of the Air Quality Matters podcast. We discuss citizen science its value in bringing stakeholders genuinely to the table, the insight that brings and the pivotal role it can play in creating a richer and deeper understanding in the value of science. It's a fascinating discipline in of itself and intersects with so many others. It creates value in fascinating ways and gives an insight into how we might engage with stakeholders more broadly.
Simon:Sarah West is the director of the Stockholm Environment Institute in York and a researcher in citizen science. She has been expanding the topics and locations in which citizen science approaches are used, including developing methods to monitor air pollution in informal settings in Nairobi. She currently works on several air quality projects in the UK, including SAMI, which we've had on this podcast, which has co-designed a web app for around 2,000 schools to see air quality data from their classrooms, and Ingenious, which is working to understand air quality in homes in Bradford. This is a fascinating conversation about people, citizens and stakeholders In air quality and more. It's about how we meaningfully engage with them and how we bring them on this journey. It's a real skill to be able to genuinely talk to people we aim to serve, and Sarah brings this skill to life. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening. As always, do check out the sponsors in the show notes and at airqualitymattersnet. This is a conversation with Sarah West. What is it in a nutshell when you're trying to explain it to people?
Sarah:Yeah, so citizen science is where volunteers work together with professional researchers to answer questions that they have about the world. So, in terms of air quality projects, that would be like what is in my home or in my school that is affecting like how I breathe, for example. Um, and so citizen science is just, yeah, getting involved in that stage, in those different stages of the scientific process, and there's different forms of citizen science. Um, so, yeah, I can talk through that and is that?
Simon:is that the same as social science? Is citizen science a form of social sciences? Basically?
Sarah:oh, so that's a really good question. Um, um, I would say citizen science is a method or an approach that you take to doing research, and you can do research as a scientist, or you can do research as a social scientist, or you can do research as an arts and humanities researcher, and they're the kind of big kind of three different ways of doing research. Big kind of three different ways of doing research. Um and so, and citizen science can be used in any of those different, um, kind of big disciplines. Um, so it's often it uses some of the methods that come from social sciences, like thinking about power dynamics, for example, or how we engage different audiences, which which is, you know, kind of things that you would think of as social science-y type things. But in other cases you're very much using scientific methods. So, for example, if you're like swabbing lettuces for bacteria, which is a project I've done, a citizen science project I've done in the past, you know, know, that's very kind of scientific techniques that you're using. So it's an approach basically to doing research so?
Simon:so is it a thing in of itself, then, citizen science, or is it something that's kind of transplanted onto the other disciplines, uh, or would you argue that that is not done well enough? Hence it's become a thing of its own?
Sarah:Yeah, great question. I think that citizen science is fundamentally an approach that can be used by lots of different disciplines to answer the questions that they have about the world. But there is also it is sort of also its own kind of field of research as well. So, for example, my team at the SEI York we do research about the method of citizen science as well. So we do research. It all gets a bit meta, but we do research like who is engaging in citizen science projects? What are the best ways of engaging people in citizen science projects? So, as well as using it as a method to answer questions about the world, for example about air quality in schools, we're also doing research about the appropriateness of the method and how we can make it better. Does that make sense?
Simon:Yeah, got you you and is that because it's quite new? Yes, is. Is that, largely, you're still trying to figure out what works, what doesn't, what works in different situations compared to what doesn't? Yeah?
Sarah:exactly yeah exactly, that's it, yeah yeah, it's.
Simon:Um, I'm guessing. Once you're in that world, you realize quite how much science probably isn't doing enough of it, because because science doesn't sit in a vacuum and nearly always involve citizens as a stakeholder at some point.
Sarah:Yes, yeah, or should, or should, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, exactly, and Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, exactly. And so I think that's the thing is that citizen science is a way that researchers can involve the public citizens in research projects and thereby actually make those research projects better, because they are, like, directly relevant to people's lives, and it is only one way of doing that. There are other approaches that you can use. So, for example, in the health sciences space, they do a thing called PPI, which is like public patient involvement, and that tends to be a bit more like we're going to do this thing. What are your thoughts on us doing this thing? Thank you for that feedback. Now we're going to go this thing. What are your thoughts on us doing this thing? Thank you for that feedback. Now we're going to go and do the thing. Whereas citizen science tends to be right, we need to go and collect some data.
Simon:help us collect that data so break it down for me, then it's probably, I think, probably the most useful thing to do. If you were to start to describe, like principally, what citizen science is, can it be kind of broken down into elements of something so people can kind of get an understanding of where it fits?
Sarah:yes, absolutely so. At its simplest, I would say, citizen science is about members of the public collecting data, and there are kind of three forms of citizen science. There's what we call contributory citizen science and that's where members of the public are just involved in collecting data. So an example of this that people might be aware of is the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch. So in January every year the RSPB you know big charity in the UK that does work on birds says can you tell us what birds are in your garden? So the RSPB have already designed what that should look like. They've told us when we're going to do it and as a participant, as a volunteer, all you have to do is go in your garden for an hour or whatever it is, and tell the RSPB how many birds you've seen. So that's called contributory citizen science, and the people, the public, are just collecting data. And then the other two forms are collaborative citizen science and co-created citizen science.
Sarah:And on collaborative citizen science, basically what happens is members of the public get involved in collecting data, but also in other stages of the scientific process as well. So, for example, a project that I'm working on at the moment called SAMI, which is Schools Air Quality Monitoring for Health and Education. We worked with schools to design what the method should look like for collecting data and what the schools wanted in terms of how they would actually see the data. So, as well as giving them a monitor and the monitor collecting data about the indoor air quality in their classrooms, we worked with them to design what the project should be doing and also how they would see the data, how we were going to communicate about that data. So that makes it a contributory sorry, a collaborative citizen science project.
Sarah:And then a co-created citizen science project is one where your volunteers are involved at every stage of the scientific process. So decide from deciding what it is you're going to focus on, so specifically the topic that you're going to look at, from designing the methods, collecting the data and analyzing that data, communicating about the findings. So those kind of projects are very in-depth and very, very time consuming to run, but can be really, really transformative for both the researchers, the scientists running the project, but also the people participating in the project. So, yeah, those are kind of the three. That's how you can break citizen science down into. I guess how you might describe citizen science, um, and then there's principles that, um, people who are running citizen science projects kind of sign up to um which explain how we, how we should do citizen science, whichever form of citizen science um you decide to do, uh, how we should do that in an ethical way and is that the kind of thing that you're researching, then, around?
Sarah:the science of citizen science is about those, what those principles are and how to get the most out of that endeavor absolutely and we also do research about, for example, what happens if you don't have diverse participants, for example, involved in your project.
Sarah:So if you've only got as often is the case in citizen science projects, if you've only got white, well-educated, middle class people participating in your project, what implications does that have for the data? What implications does that have for social equity? What implications does that have for raising up awareness of a particular topic, say, for example, air quality? You know, if you're doing an air quality engagement project using a citizen science approach and you're only working with, say, fee-paying schools but actually fee-paying schools might have the best indoor air quality is that fair? Because they're getting that raised awareness of the problems of poor indoor air quality and what they can do about it, whereas actually perhaps your schools, which might need most support because they've got the poorest air quality, aren't able to benefit from that project. So we kind of look at it from a justice perspective as well as kind of what does that tell us for the data?
Simon:if you're trying to research something like air quality, the very people that this might have the best outcome with may not have the resources and time to be able to do the science. Therefore, it can be a very difficult thing to get right, get that balance right. So I guess that's something that you're trying to get a deep understanding of in citizen science is how you answer those questions. How do you reflect the questions that you're trying to ask?
Sarah:absolutely and from our perspective.
Sarah:So the um, the SEI York research group that focuses on citizen science we, you know, think that it's sort of horses for courses.
Sarah:There's some projects that you shouldn't try and do using a co-created approach because actually you're just interested in getting data from a really wide geographic area about a subject and so, you know, trying to co-create what that project looks like isn't appropriate or maybe you don't have the budget to do so.
Sarah:Often you don't have the budget to do so, um, but I think our general view is that those projects where you can have that kind of like more in-depth working with the end users of your research and that more in-depth working with your participants through a more co-created approach, then actually you can target those particular groups who might be most vulnerable, for example, to the effects of poor indoor air quality, and work with them really closely, work with other organisations we like to call them gatekeeper organisations. So who are the organisations working with those groups who are particularly vulnerable and how can you involve them in then getting into those homes or those schools or whatever where that air quality is particularly poor? Um, and that is time consuming and it's expensive working in this way, um, but really really ultimately beneficial, we believe there's something about working with children and animals in there as well, I'm sure I imagine sometimes as academic, it must fill you with horror involving the greater general public in things, because it just adds a layer of complexity and a potential or a feeling of losing control.
Simon:All of the tropes that would stop scientists from involving people too much, because life's hard enough as it is. Thank you very much. Um, why would I open myself up to getting somebody to help co-create what the question's gonna be?
Sarah:yeah, yeah, you know yeah, yeah, and I do think there's an element of some scientists thinking that, oh yeah, like citizen science, this is basically just like getting the public to do what I need them to do, and that's much easier than all the complicated work that I do in my lab thinking about chemistry and air pollutants. But actually this work is so is really hard and is really specialized um, and that's why we find that in our group like, lots of people are coming to us for advice on how to run citizen science projects because we've got, you know well, between us. I dread to think how many decades of experience it is, but I've been working in the field for 15 years now. So me as an individual, I don't doesn't feel me with horror, because I've always worked with people, um, so it's kind of I've never worked in any other way. I've always worked doing my research in a very participatory way.
Sarah:Um, but one of the things that we we have um helped pull together is um these kind of 10 principles for citizen science which the european citizen science association, or exa, as we call them um, have published, and I think they've been published in something like 40 different languages now. Um, because citizen science is, you know um is an approach that is used around the world, but these kind of 10 principles are designed so that if you're new to coming to citizen science and it's an approach you want to use, so say, for example, you've got a great idea about, okay, I want to monitor air quality in schools across germany. Or I want to look at, you know, I want to put low-cost sensors into all of these different streets or whatever they this. These give you a way of of trying to understand how you can do citizen science in a kind of ethical way, um, and I think they're really a really useful starting point, um for doing projects, if you've not come across them before yeah, and I wonder what the best way to address that is.
Simon:Um, I mean as a kind of a thought experiment, maybe walk me through what a citizen science approach might look like. So let's take the, let's take the monitoring air quality in schools because you know we can intertwine sammy into that discussion as well and maybe some of those principles. So somebody comes to you, they're doing a phd on air quality and cognitive performance outcomes in schools or something interesting like that, and they go look, I'd really like to include some citizen science elements to this. How does your advice go to them in those situations? It is that how it tends to go, that somebody's going thinking of. I have an idea of a question about this. You go right, stop, let's have a think about how citizen science might, yes, intertwine into this yes, yeah.
Sarah:So the first thing we would say is well, what, what added benefit are you going to get from involving citizens? Because sometimes, actually, if they want, for example, to do in-depth measurements in one classroom, but you know they want to like heavily, instrument it and find out everything they ever wanted to know about that classroom and the air quality, you know do you really need to involve like citizens in collecting that data? Probably not. You need lots of postdoctoral researchers and people who know how to run your instruments and technicians and all of that sort of thing. Um, so the first principle is about actively involving citizens in scientific endeavor that generates new knowledge or understanding. So the first question is like what's your research question and do you need like volunteers, citizens, to help you answer that request, that question? Um, so that's the kind of starting point really. So like it's not interesting.
Simon:Yeah, that's kind of interesting for life in general. I mean, I don't know how many conversations I've had in business where you've spoken to. They've got this fantastic idea, sales idea or product idea and you go have you asked your customers what they want?
Sarah:what's what's?
Simon:interesting to them or what they're struggling with, or you know this is. I imagine there's a bit of that when someone comes to you and goes that's really interesting. Have you spoken to a yes to an eight year old? Yet about what's important to them. Uh no, how about a teacher?
Sarah:you know, yeah absolutely, absolutely, um, and so that's a really important starting point is like who? Who have you spoken to about this already? Like, and if you haven't spoken to anybody, if it's just a good idea you've had go and speak to some people, is it actually what need? And I think, if you are doing this really kind of in-depth working, so more on the kind of co-created side of citizen science or contributory citizen science or collaborative citizen science, rather than the contributory citizen science, which is more like I as a researcher have decided I want you to go and collect this data. Go and collect this data for me.
Sarah:The more points of interaction that you have with your volunteers, the more likely you are to have those conversations where you're saying, actually you know what they're actually interested in A, whereas I'm interested in B, and so a lot of our group's work is about trying to. When somebody comes to us and says I've got this idea, we're like, okay, okay, well, have you spoken to the people? No, okay, well, we can go and speak to people, and then it's kind of like getting that happy balance between what's realistic to be done and what the scientist wants to be done and kind of managing everyone's expectations in that space yeah, and one of the the second principles is that creating new knowledge piece, but the bit that stood out to me in the sentence I have here on it was that the activities and outcomes should be scientifically valid.
Simon:Quality you, it might need some framing to actually turn what they think is really interesting into something that's scientifically valid, or is going to answer a question that contributes to science rather than absolutely a trope or a perspective that's just misaligned or you know there's I imagine there's quite a bit of alignment necessary in citizen science to absolutely what's perceived as a knowledge gap and absolutely yeah yes and I, and an example of this is a project that we're doing, a citizen science project that my colleague, dr reese archer is running, um called youth lives, which is youth livedived Experience in Evidence Synthesis One of these funny titles that doesn't quite do what it says.
Sarah:But basically what this is doing is it's working with young people who've got lived experience of mental health issues and it's trying to bring them together with mental health researchers to find out what are the questions that they have around mental health. And so much of the time in that project was spent talking to each other and realizing that some of the questions that the young people had around mental health were already answered by research. It's just that the researchers had done not very good job of communicating that like because they'd just written about them in a journal and never got them out to the young people. And so sometimes it's about, say, for example, if you're talking to an air quality be a an eight-year-old about air quality, it might be like well, we already know all of that about it, we're just not communicating it very effectively. But your question about what is air quality like in your classroom, that is something we don't know the answer to.
Sarah:So let's so together we can work on that to find out the answer to that, and there'll be some questions that we can't answer. You know there's still so much I know this from sitting in various project meetings around air quality and health that there's still so many things we don't know about the actual mechanics of how, say, say, particulate matter or volatile organic compounds actually affect health and the doses required to affect health and things like that, and so there's some things that we have to say to our participants, our volunteers, our citizens. You know that's a great question. We're not going to be able to answer it within this project, and so I think that's a really important part as well is it's like managing everyone's expectations about what this project can actually achieve yeah, and on that kind of leads on to the third principle, really, which seems to me to be about aligning the benefits.
Simon:So you know that there's benefits to both science and the stakeholders and society and and so on, and I that to me speaks of the co-benefits that this is a participatory endeavor and there's for there's got to be a quid pro quo in this, that if you're asking for people to be actively engaged in something, there's got to be something out the other side of it for them as well, and that must be incredibly important to balance absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yes, absolutely, and that's why so in some instances.
Sarah:So I think citizen science has a potential to be quite extractive. So if you are just saying to people, you know, I just want you to go and like tell me what the measurement is on this water, like what measure the water table for me, or something like that, and you're not thinking at all about what benefit they're getting from it, I I think that can be really problematic. But it's also important to know that the benefits might not be what you, as a researcher, might think the benefits are. So it could be, for example, that people are getting real benefits.
Sarah:We did a project in Wake, um, on an old coalfield site um and uh. We were asking people to go and monitor butterflies that they saw whilst they were walking their dogs. Um, and actually we hadn't realized that one of the real motivations for them taking part was they got to, had felt, have had a sense of purpose, a sense of like I'm not just walking my dog, or I'm not just if they didn't have a dog, I'm not just sitting at my home. It's given me a reason to go outside and do something positive. So it's important to consider that there's a whole range of motivations that people might have for participating in your project. But thinking very carefully about what those benefits are and designing your project so that it's not extractive and that people are getting something back from it is really important and how do you define and learn what those are from stakeholders?
Simon:because that's it that I imagine that's quite a nuanced endeavor, depending on the cohort that you're talking to, and and so on, that, like you say, you think the benefit might be that there's a biodiversity benefit out the other side of it, but actually the benefit is a behavioral one or a psychological one of being involved in something. So you, I guess you have to be quite open when you're going into these conversations and dialogues about why somebody might be in check, and I and I guess, if it's a broad enough study, that there could be different drivers for different groups, particularly if you've got quite a broad cohort absolutely, absolutely.
Sarah:And our group's done some work on this in the past, originally funded by defra, actually looking at motivations of people involved in environmental citizen science projects, and what we found was that there's a really big range of motivations that people have for participating in citizen science. So we did a really big survey of motivations that people have for participating in citizen science. So we did a really big survey of this and others have done surveys in other parts of the world and found very similar motivations for participating in citizen science from the participant, the citizen, volunteer perspective. So I think we know, in kind of hypothetical terms or theoretical terms, we know, what the range of motivations are for participating and our team at SEI's work has also shown that different demographic groups, as you say, have different motivations for participating. Uk, for example, we found that kind of personal development opportunities were particularly important from people who were from ethnic groups other than white ethnicity. Those kind of opportunities for career development or personal development were particularly important for those non-white groups, for example. So we kind of from a theoretical perspective, we know, a lots of different variations in motivations and, b, that motivations vary by different demographic group, for example, ethnicity, for example, age, gender, things like that.
Sarah:But the most important thing is talking to your prospective participants to find out like what they might, what might motivate them to take part, and also the wider stakeholders. So you know the kind of groups that might be. So it might be industry representatives or um union representatives or whatever. What do they want out of your project? So we'd always advise that you know when you're thinking of starting up a project, talk to as diverse a group of people as you possibly can to find out what they want from your project and then design it accordingly. You know, don't go in with a fixed mindset and think this is how I'm going to do my project. Take all those kind of feedback into account. It needs requires a very flexible mind. I think designing and running citizen science projects, which can be hard for researchers sometimes- yeah, fair enough, and what does that typically look like, that process?
Simon:So we've kind of gone through the first three or four principles. It all seems to be about dialogue and understanding the stakeholder groups and motivations and needs and all of that Practically. Does that look very similar across most citizen science endeavours or is it dramatically different depending on the groups and sizing? Is it as simple as sitting down in workshops and questionnaires or is it much deeper than that?
Sarah:I think it really depends on the project. But certainly, like workshops, surveys are really great tools that you can use for finding out what people are interested in doing, but also, if you're on a very small project, just having one to one conversations with people is really important. Just having one-to-one conversations with people is really important. So, for example, this project that my colleague, lucy Way, and I did a couple of years ago now was looking at antimicrobial resistant bacteria on lettuces and we were getting people to swab their lettuces to see what bacteria they had on them.
Sarah:These were like people growing vegetables in their back gardens homegrown home growers, um. And actually when we were designing that project, we literally were having conversations with just one grower in york um, who was really engaged in the concept of the idea, and with garden organic, who were a really big um charity working in in the concept of the idea, and with Garden Organic, who are a really big charity working in in the home growing space, and so we were having literally one-to-one conversations with them. And so before we then went out and did this project, which had about 100 participants so it really depends on the scale of the project how much budget you've got, who, who you know already. Um so, but yeah, talking to people is necessary for any project. But the way that you do that talking whether it's actually talking to people or it's surveys or it's kind of some sort of middle ground where it's like workshops or something depends on budget and the skills of your team and things like that I, I can.
Simon:I won't say who, but I can think of a number of academics that'd be incredibly healthy for as well to get out of it and have some conversations with people. But, uh, but, but again, like in that, that's a skill in itself, you know absolutely to be able to explain what you're doing at different levels is incredibly cathartic, I think, as a technical expert, sometimes to be able to. You don't know. You truly know something until you're able to explain it to a seven year old, as they say Absolutely.
Sarah:Absolutely yes, and it's interesting because my first job at SEI was a role that they called community scientist was a role that they called community scientist and it was on this big citizen science project the first big citizen science project in the UK called OPAL, which stood for Open Air Laboratories, and it was funded by the National Lottery and led by Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum. And we were specifically hired in this community scientist role to be that broker between the scientists and the community members. So you know, I came in as an enthusiastic 21 year old, I think you know, like going around talking to people about the worms in their back gardens and things like that in their back gardens and things like that, and it was great because I didn't know anything about earthworm biology but I had people who did know about earthworm biology and I had school children who were asking me about earthworms, and so I was able to be that bridging of the gap between the two and I think I'm basically doing the same thing, however, many years later now, you know, working with air quality researchers who, like, have expertise in you know, the fluid dynamics of it all and also the chemical. Like you know, you can't see my face because you're listening, but my face is looking confused.
Sarah:But the chemistry, the really complex chemistry of all of this stuff and I'm the one at the back of the meetings going sorry to ask a naive question, but what does this mean for this? Or, if I'm a householder, what should I do in that situation? Is it better for me to? If I want to have a nice smelling house, should I burn a candle or should I have a plug, an air freshener, or should I open the window? You know, I'm the one asking the naive questions because that is what my participants will be asking, and so I think, having having people like me and my team at sei, you know who can ask those kind of questions, and be that bridge because, as you say, some scientists are just not very good at it- yeah and no.
Simon:It's hard, yeah, and if you're having, if you're having, conversations every day with your PhD students about air chemistry, you know, and the complex interactions of ozone and toluenes or something, it's very hard for you to take a step back and go right. Okay, what does that actually mean from an outcome perspective to a homeowner or something?
Simon:yeah, absolutely it strikes me that a lot of this this first piece, very analogous to mark marketing and market research that, um, I had a conversation on the podcast earlier in the year with a company called everything is user experience and they specialize in understanding the uxul, user experience, user interaction from a product perspective and again it it very similar in a lot of ways that they talk about, uh, a guy called dan. He says you know, depending on the budget, I can speak to 20 people personally and I can get you so close I can understand from those conversation what's important to people, what you need to concentrate on, and so on for more budget. I can then start to take that information, develop a questionnaire and reach more people and expand that out and learn, get a deeper dive and then for a bigger budget, you know, for a broader cohort, you can go even deeper. Sounds very similar in a lot of ways in understanding your customer. You know there's a lot of that to this?
Sarah:yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and I think, yeah, that's exactly it. It's understanding who they are, what they need from the project, what you need from them, from the project. And I would say we also need to draw on expertise of other disciplines or other fields, other businesses, et cetera. So, for example, on SAMI, we've got an amazing communications specialist who does all our comms for it. So it's not just that we have people who know how to do citizen science and we've got air quality researchers, we've also got communication specialists, we've got project managers, we've got admin support, and I think often people underestimate how much time these kind of approaches take and therefore what resourcing they need to do.
Sarah:And also, I think sometimes scientists can be a bit big headed and think that they can do everything. Because I'm capable of having these really complex thoughts, I can also do all of this other stuff, which is much easier, but I'm just a firm believer in like you know, I'm not very good at lots and lots of things. My team was tell you like sarah is the most undetails oriented person like get her to try and like organize a meeting. It's a complete waste of time, but luckily I have amazing people who do that for me, and so you know I think science teams, projects which are using a citizen science approach, tend to have diverse skill sets in their teams. Because they are so complex, because you need to understand your audience, you need to understand the old kind of end audience as well as your participants, and there's all sorts of organization that has to go on as well as actually doing the actual research.
Simon:So yeah, and you spoke to that earlier, in that you know, in that first endeavor, often the reason stakeholders will have questions about things or want to answer questions around things is because they didn't know that had already been answered, and science is dreadful at communicating its outcomes. Um, and I think one of the interesting things about citizen science it seems to me anyway is it's a very end-to-end process, which means you do need to run it. You know most, you know what it's like. Most academic stuff is just ends with requires for the research and that paper just gets, gets a unique dui number and gets stuck on a platform somewhere and that's it. Job done, right as far as anybody's concerned, whereas the citizen science process goes oh, no, no, no, that's just the first bit actually we need to understand what value this has to people.
Simon:We now need to communicate that and that's got. So we've got. We've got a quid pro quo thing going on here. This has got to come full circle all the way back, which means you will need a communications team, you will absolutely, and so on yeah, absolutely.
Sarah:And one of the really important principles of citizen science is that they get that. Your citizen scientists get feedback from the project and that's important because, well, as you, as you say, like the communication is essential, because, like you're trying to educate them about the topic, for example, air quality in schools so we have to tell them about the air quality in their schools and, really importantly, what they can do about it if it is poor air quality. But also, if you don't give people feedback, they're going to stop participating. You know, if you're constantly telling, sending off I don't know, say, somebody asks you to I don't know, measure the water depth in the local lake to you because they want to look about flood risk or something, if you every week go and like send off your water measurements and you never get anything back from that, you're going to stop right. You will be like what's the point in me going and telling them about the water in my pond when you know I'm never hearing about what that's actually being used for? So that feedback element is really important for two reasons One, to keep people involved in your project.
Sarah:People involved in your project, but also citizen science. I think the kind of power of it is that you're generating new knowledge about the world that is relevant to people's lives, because hopefully you've involved them in designing what the project's about, but also you're educating at the same time. So it's that dual purpose which, I think, makes it really magical that people, through participating, are getting a better understanding of whatever topic you're looking at, whether that's air quality in schools, air quality in homes or bacterial lettuces. Does that?
Simon:muddy the water a little bit with the lab rat element of science. Sometimes bit with the lab rat element of science. Sometimes you know there's conversations you have with scientists where you're going, but what you do when you find x environment is bad, well, no, we don't say anything because we need to understand what the outcome is as a result of it. You go well, yeah, does that make you a bit? Um, if you've got citizens involved in that from the very beginning, they're going to be sticking their hand up, going, uh, we'd like to know, uh, if it's high or there's a risk or so on. So I guess risk communication is all of a sudden really important, absolutely, and tying that into outcomes that look, if we tell you what's going on, that's going to change behaviour and we need to understand what the. So I imagine you have to. Really it's about risk communication but also understanding the principles of scientific endeavour as well. What are you trying to answer? What impact will doing one thing have on another?
Sarah:absolutely. And so if somebody came to me and said I want to monitor the effects of you know, I don't know, having like hepa filters in classrooms versus not having hepa filters in classrooms and I don't want like human behavior to like I don't want to influence them through the project, I'd say, well, don't, you don't want to do a citizen science project, then you just want to go in with a black box and monitor air quality before and after you have a filter in, like you know, if you want to have a transformative or potentially transformative effect on the occupants of the room that you're monitoring, then citizen science is amazing for that. But like not if you want to do like an a, b without any intervention, kind of uh setup of a project, because it is that's the power of it. Right is that it can affect people's knowledge and their understanding and potentially their behaviors, and it's been really like we've spent so much time thinking about this in sammy is how do we communicate about risk and trying to empower people? Because there's a real ethical concern here with raising awareness to people that they might be sat in a room all day which has got high co2 levels or high particulate matter levels or is too hot or whatever and not and them not being able to do anything about it. You know, that's a real ethical concern and so it's really important to us that we say to people we give them context for what their readings are showing.
Sarah:So, on SAMI schools, we send them a monitor and they get access to this web app which we co-designed with schools, and in the web app they can see graphs of their data and in each of those graphs we give context. So for PM, for example, you know, the key government guidelines is five. There's also a guideline around 10. There's also a guideline around 15 micrograms per cubic meter. Yours are five. So what does that mean, you know? And so we've got always signpost to people to other information. That's the first thing we so they can put their data in context. And we also have a little box which says the average for Sammy schools over the past term was whatever. So they can think, oh gosh, yeah, my CO2 is really high compared to the other schools.
Sarah:But we also have activities in there that they can use to understand what actions they can take to try and mitigate or to try and lower those metrics. So, for example, there's one in there about CO2 levels of an empty classroom and it gets them to experiment with opening and closing windows, reducing occupancy levels and things, so that they can see, all right, when we open our windows, occupancy levels and things so that they can see, oh right, when we open our windows, actually the CO2 level drops really well. So if I find, as often is the case in the afternoon in my school, co2 levels are rising we've got a high percentage of readme there the children are like feeling it's really stuffy, they're not concentrating all of that stuff. But I've done this experiment with my pupils that tells us that I know that if we open the windows at lunchtime I can bring the CO2 levels down. So we're starting from a lower baseline.
Sarah:So it's about that kind of empowerment piece, like giving people agency to be able to make a change, which then makes so we've done a lot of soul searching on this in sammy but makes us think that it's okay to raise awareness of these issues because a we're giving them the context of what those numbers mean in the context of, like, either global or national guidelines, and that we're giving them something they can do about it, which is so important yeah, I'd written agency down and it would you remind him of a conversation with douglas bookerer about kind of the social justice elements of this stuff.
Simon:And I imagine that must be a real red flag in citizen science is if there's elements of what you're studying where somebody doesn't have agency over outcomes and all you're doing is raising awareness or fear of something they've got no control over.
Sarah:That's a difficult thing but it's a difficult circle to square yeah, absolutely, and so all our projects we have to get ethical approval from um some source or other. So for some projects, if it's involving NHS, for example, that'll be NHS ethical approval. But most of my projects don't involve the NHS, so that we get approval from through my university, the University of York, and and in that there that is one of the important questions that they consider. So what is the role of like? Is there a risk of psychological harm or physical harm through participating in this project and what can you do to mitigate that? And so if there were instances where it was like, well, we're going to raise awareness of this issue and we're not giving anybody anything they can do about it, then that, as you say, would be a red flag for them and they would say, no, you can't do this project.
Simon:Do you have the same challenges in citizen science as you do in epidemiology? That scale becomes very important. The reason I ask that is, I imagine that because there's such a dynamic element of stakeholder engagement. As you know, risk is a perceptive thing. People's tolerance of risk is different. People's engagement is going to be very different depending on the success or failure of conversations and communication with different cohorts. It makes results very dynamic.
Simon:I imagine, out the other side, yeah. So if, if the study is too small, it could make it very difficult to reach conclusions. I would guess because the impact of, like you say, people suddenly getting engaged halfway through the project over air quality because of some external factor you're not aware of, or losing engagement through the process, you know, thinking of the things that's happened in the last couple of years, like fuel crises and fuel poverty and covid and all of these huge fuel crises and fuel poverty and COVID and all of these huge macroeconomic external factors that could swing sentiment so dramatically. I guess you really have to take account of that when you're looking at outcomes from these types of studies.
Sarah:Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's about communication. Again, it's about understanding, when you are communicating, exactly what data sets this come from. What was the context in which I collected that data? How many participants did I have? And then being really careful, like you do with any research research and this is again one of the principles of citizen science it's considered a research approach like any other, with limitations and biases that should be considered and controlled for. So you have to be explaining where your data has come from, how many people were involved and then making sure that you're not making overblown statements that your research can't support.
Sarah:Basically, on the other hand, I would say that a lot of citizens, because engagement and learning are such an important part of citizen science projects. So projects are often trying to inform people about the topic as well as collect new data. I think there is potential to talk about findings that haven't come from your study, so you can do sort of general awareness raising about the topic of air quality if it hasn't come from your own, even if it hasn't come from your own data. I mean thinking on SAMI, for example. You know we have definitions for schools about ventilation, for example, or the factors that affect indoor air quality. We haven't done that research ourselves. This is kind of general knowledge about these things and we're just communicating about it to to our participants, which again is kind of a bit of a superpower. It gives us an opportunity to talk about these things.
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Simon:Now back to the podcast. It strikes me, talking to sarah, that there's an awful lot that can be learned from this approach that doesn't necessarily have to be applied to scientific endeavor. You know and I'm thinking particularly from my world of ventilation and air quality, particularly outcomes in, for example, housing, but you know the workplace and education also. You know let's just take housing as an example you've got often quite complex groups of stakeholders. You know landlords and tenants, you've got different socio-economic groups and religious groups and ethnicities and all sorts of dynamics going on. Um, and one of the challenges we have with ventilation and air quality is engaging with stakeholders meaningfully Housing associations, for example, being able to develop workshops or policies or strategies that start to deliver better outcomes.
Simon:Obviously, we've had the condensation damper, mold crisis in the UK, as it's been seen with the development of Arabs law and things like that Outside of the stock condition surveys and things that have had to happen and the response times being improved and Arabs law is going to improve reporting. We're now moving on to the complicated bit of we've actually got to fix it rather than just understand how big a problem it is and that's going to require not just improvements in ventilation systems and, you know, energy efficiency of homes. But stakeholder engagement, engaging with tenants in a way that drives better outcomes and everything that we've been talking about here seems incredibly analogous to that kind of an endeavor. About taking some of these principles, about going okay, if you're doing a workshop with tenants, starting from the very beginning, yeah, well, we would like to tackle damp and mold, but actually what would you like us to tackle if we're going to start talking about air quality and ventilation in homes? What's important to you here? Can we align those in some way and bring you on this journey with us?
Sarah:absolutely, absolutely. And I think that the kind of the principles of citizen science, but also the kind of general principles with by which I do my work in general, are applicable to fields, exactly as you say, beyond citizen science. So other research projects that I work on which aren't taking the citizen science approach, I'm bringing this participatory element in so that we are actually trying to have better outcomes for the project. So an example of this is a project called Ingenious. I'm not even going to try and explain what that acronym stands for, because it makes not very much sense but you've heard of it.
Sarah:So it's being led by Prof Nick Castle here at the University of York and it's looking at indoor air quality and outdoor air quality around Bradford specifically and focusing on homes. So we are doing monitoring in homes using low cost sensors and some much more high tech sensors. But we also wanted to bring in all of the other stakeholders who might be interested in this work. So like local authority air quality officials, health people, researchers in other spaces, campaigning organisations, manufacturers of fragrances, for example, a whole range of people who we thought might be interested in our work, odefra, people like that who would be interested in this. And we set this right up at the beginning of the project to find out what is it they're interested in for the project. So how can we shape the project to find out what is it they're interested in for the project? So how can we shake the projects to find out what they're interested in? Um, but also, how can we communicate about the project in ways that are what? How they need to have that information.
Sarah:So you know, thinking about policy briefs or webinars or three minute videos, versus like the standard stuff that academics always do, which is like write a paper in a journal and go to a conference. So you know, are there trade associations we should be visiting? Are there particular workshops we need to be at? Those kind of things. And it's been really invaluable for helping us think about what we're going to do on the project but also how we're going to communicate about it. So I really think that the kind of these, these kind of principles of taught not like don't do research about us without us I think that's really the fundamental thing like don't do research about us without us, and thinking about that all the time is so important, um, for doing really robust, like really good research that is actually going to impact people, rather than that just sits on a shelf yeah, yeah, and, like you say, look fair enough.
Simon:If you're doing some air chemistry research and you're trying to understand how free radicals do something, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, fine Like work away, good luck to you. But if, if, if your research is genuinely about people or the built environment or something where stakeholders are in those spaces, then all of a sudden you can see the value that that citizen science brings. What are the kind of things you're working on now then, sarah, and and how? Where would you like to see citizen science go? Um, because it I, I I'm guessing that it's just probably not utilized enough. It is. Is it the kind of thing that people you'd like to see as a? When you're seeing multi-disciplinary research going on, that one of the first things is is where's the citizen science person for this project? Is it? Is it that kind of thing that's just considered more at the very beginning?
Sarah:yeah, I would like I think I've used this expression once before, but I think you know it's horses for courses like there are some projects which shouldn't just shouldn't have a citizen science approach. They don't need a citizen science approach or it would be very expensive to do it well, and so I would think, like, don't try and do a rubbish citizen science project. So I think my ambition would probably be more to see projects that say they're citizen science, doing really good citizen science, like making sure that you're adhering to those 10 principles of citizen science. Um, you can see them on the exa website and they're also on the sei website as well I'll include some links actually in the show notes for people if they want to find it.
Sarah:Brilliant, because I think that I don't think, apart from in the citizen science field, I don't think they're particularly well known.
Sarah:I think you know I hinted at this earlier. I think some researchers maybe think that you know, oh, because I do all this really complex chemistry stuff I can, of course, talk to people about and I can do a citizen science approach. So I think what I'd like to see really is better citizen science projects done, and and researchers or whoever else is thinking of doing a project, when they're starting up thinking who do I need to speak to, who do I need to involve in this project, regardless of whether they then think about doing a citizen science project like we've talked about. You know, like talking to people about what they want from the research is so important, regardless of the approach, the methodology that you actually use, whether it's citizen science or not, um, so, yeah, I think it would be that like thinking about participants, like who is going to use my data at the end of this, what's going to happen to it and what impact do I want to have for my project.
Simon:I think that's what I would like to see I can imagine you shouting at papers quite a lot in the same way that I do, because I'm a buildings person where you're seeing a paper written and all all your look, all your shouting out into the void is yeah, but what about the ventilation system? Like, how can you have a conclusion if they've got no context here? I don't understand how this building works, how many surfaces there are, what the volume is like, how there's no context to the air quality outcomes. And I'm imagining from a citizen science perspective, where they're drawing conclusions about, uh, stakeholders engagement and stuff you're going really did you really speak?
Sarah:did you speak to any? Yeah?
Simon:did you speak to anybody?
Sarah:yeah, I imagine there's a lot of that. Yeah, yeah and yeah, and I think that's the really key thing is like speak to people. And if you're not very good at speaking to people, that's okay. We all have different skill sets. Find somebody who is good at speaking to people, and that might be like that marketing guy that you were talking about had on your podcast previously. Like outsource right. If you're not good at it, outsource it to somebody else, and that could be someone else in your team, or it might be an external company, but like make sure somebody is speaking to people on your behalf yeah, yes, and uncomfortable.
Simon:It's an uncomfortable place, I think, in any endeavor to open yourself up to the very stakeholders that you claim to be talking about or researching or providing services to. And you know, and I think it's an endeavor that a lot of people pay lip service to, because it is an uncomfortable place to put yourself.
Sarah:You know, I get that, yeah, that yeah, totally, yeah, totally. But so important If we, you know, if we want to do projects that are really making a difference in the world and aren't just kind of reinventing the wheel all the time, we have to speak to stakeholders, but we also have to speak to each other, like we have to speak to other people who are doing that. You know, the air quality research space is actually really crowded. Like we have to be learning from each other and working out what's working and what isn't working and be open and honest and vulnerable about yeah, we did this that didn't work at all. Don't do that in future. Or this is working really nicely.
Simon:This is what I'd recommend and I I would really love to see more of that yeah, or we've found out this, but it's made absolutely no meaningful difference on the ground because nobody knows about it part, I mean, we never knew that because nobody thought to ask. You know, we found out by the questions they were asking that actually we could have solved a lot of the problems we had if people actually knew what we know absolutely so.
Sarah:The communicate, yeah, like I just think. Communicate, it all comes down to communication yeah basically, that could be the summary.
Simon:Communication is important, do it, and what explain to me what the stockholm environmental institute is. Have I got that right? Is it nearly?
Sarah:very nearly stockholm environment institute, sei um. So it's a variously described but a research institute, is a global research institute. So we've got about, I think, 350 members of staff worldwide. So our head office is in stockholm um in sweden, and then we've got eight centers all around the world, including two in the UK. So we have SEI York, which I'm director of, and SEI Oxford, which is in Oxford, and we do research around all issues to do with environmental sustainability really.
Sarah:So we do lots of air quality research, lots of work on climate change um, lots of work on adaptation in the uk, lots of work on supply chains and and thinking about how the impacts of um purchasing um like on biodiversity.
Sarah:So, for example, you know, thinking about where does soya come from and how soya moves around the world and the impacts that soy farming has on biodiversity and social issues. So, yeah, a whole load of research, anything related to environmental sustainability. Really it's a very action oriented research institute. So we're really interested in kind of making a difference, so linking together with policymakers um, whether that's kind of policymakers who work in government, for example, down to you know, like people making decisions about air quality in schools, for example. So we use kind of policymakers to mean, like anybody who makes decisions really. So policymakers and other decision takers, so yes, so making sure that our research is always relevant to the groups that we work with, so in the SEI space, kind of talking to different stakeholders, is bread and butter for us. You know, it's what we do all the time.
Simon:So does it kind of cross over then into kind of a think tank and a lobby, not a lobby group? But you know, if you're policy facing is it is that it's kind of mandate is to create positions on things, or is it purely academic or it kind of straddles both?
Sarah:somewhere in between. Yeah, so so there used to be like a global think tank rating scheme and like we were often like number one or number two in terms of environmental think tanks. And when we were number one, we were like this is amazing rating scheme, we're number one. And when we were number two, we were like, yeah, who cares?
Simon:so so yeah think tank ratings?
Sarah:um, but um, yeah, so people do describe us as a think tank. Um, we refer to ourselves as a science to policy research institute. So we're doing research but we're trying to have policy impacts and we don't consider ourselves an advocacy organization. We talk about the fact that we are doing research that is grounded in scientific research and then we communicate about that research so that our partners can go and then act on those findings. So that might be, for example, working with I've got a colleague who works at York and he's doing work on nitrogen and he's working with people like Client Earth and WWF who are using research findings from him and they're doing the advocacy. Or it might be that we're working directly with government. So, for example, we're doing some work in our York Centre with the Belgian and German governments on their deforestation policies, so making recommendations to them about what they should do. But it's up to them. You know we present the science and we say, if you did this, this would cause this, if you did this, it would cause this. It is up to you what you want to do now.
Sarah:And I have other colleagues in York who work with governments on air quality specifically, often in low and middle income countries, often in lower middle income countries. So working with them, using a tool that they work with government officials on, to better understand what the implications would be of different policies. So, for example, if we decided in our country say, for example, nigeria or Pakistan, we decided that we're going to shift away from diesel cars by 2040, what implications would that have for health? Um, for, like um, excess deaths, agricultural yields, various other things, carbon emissions, those kind of things. So so yeah, lots of, lots of work.
Simon:That's very practical, working hand in hand, I would say, with the end users of our research and are you always affiliated to an academic institution, the the institute because you're you're based up in york?
Sarah:is that how?
Simon:it works like you generally will be at least attached to a university of some description.
Sarah:No, no, it's very complicated beast um, which I've, you know, I've been at sei for like, like nearly 20 years and I still don't quite understand it. But um, no, every centre is set up slightly differently. So our Oxford Centre, for example, is just a um, a company limited by guarantee, um, and our York Centre is um very closely affiliated to the University of York, so we're all employees of the University of York, so we're all employees of the University of York, and our Stockholm office has an affiliation to Stockholm University and yeah, whereas other offices don't have that close link with the university. But we are all very grounded in doing academic research. So kind of doing research and publishing that research in academic journals is kind of the backbone of what we do, because we don't think that we can be credible without that kind of academic publishing the research effectively.
Sarah:That that, that exactly okay the product is the research, and, but the forms that that research takes are very varied depending on the projects that we're doing. So it could be like policy briefs, it could be research papers, it could be project reports, it could be podcasts, it could blogs, whatever you know, a web app like in SAMI. So yeah, a whole range of different things, depending on what. Again, coming back to communication, depending on what our stakeholders, our end audiences, who we want to use. Our research has told us they want.
Simon:Oh, interesting. So in the end, the Oxford office or the York office is just the vehicle that's appropriate for the output that you're trying to generate, basically. So it is determined by what you need to do. How's something like that funded, then? Is that done through governments or through?
Sarah:philanthropy. How does?
Simon:it work.
Sarah:Yeah, a mix so we have. At our York Centre. We get some funding from Stockholm which ultimately comes from the Swedish government. That's quite a small portion of funding that we get that helps our centre and the other equivalent centres around the world kind of keep ourselves going. So that's a small percentage of funds. Most of our funds in York come from research incomes, so that's either from UKRI research councils or it might be from, say, defra or JNCC, natural England places like that.
Sarah:And then we also get quite a lot of money from various UN sources as well. United Nations, because we work quite closely with them, various UN sources as well. United Nations, because we work quite closely with them. For example, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition give us lots of funds to work directly with governments to improve their air quality and their climate change targets. So, yeah, really varied, and some philanthropy a little bit, some private sector as well. We're doing some work. Our air quality climate change group are doing some work with some private sector companies, big names, on looking at the air pollution emissions across their supply chains. So we do get some kind of business income as well.
Simon:So, like a lot of academic research, then a lot of the skill is in applying for grants and funding and identifying research opportunities. So you get wrapped up in all of that joy. I take it, do you Sarah?
Sarah:all of that, yeah, yeah, all of that, yes, yeah, yeah. You said earlier about like well, I read papers. I must get really frustrated. I'm like when do I read papers? No, I just mainly like write, write grant applications and then do the work how did you end up in this then?
Simon:I mean, how did you find yourself at the Stockheb Institute and in citizen science in general?
Sarah:yeah, it's an interesting story actually. So I did my undergraduate degree in geography and it was a real. I always knew I wanted to be a geographer, like when I left secondary school uh, sixth form actually I said to my geography teacher, mr c, I'm going to come back when I'm a famous geographer. And he went sarah, geographers aren't famous. Um, so I. But I always knew I wanted to be famous geographer. And he went Sarah, geographers aren't famous, so I. But I always knew I wanted to be a geographer. And the geography degree that I did was a real mix of human and physical geography, which I loved, because I wasn't particularly interested in just learning about earthquakes. What I was interested about is how the people around reacted to the earthquake. So the mix of the human and the physical was what really excited me.
Sarah:Um and my husband was doing a degree in biology at York and he wasn't my husband at the time, he's my boyfriend and we were commuting up and down um the um cross-country trains to see each other. And then, after the, after the degrees, he got a PhD offer at York. So we moved up to York and I did a master's at Leeds in biodiversity and conservation. Again, it was like that people and the environment bit together was loving it was learning all about plants and lichens and soil and really interesting how, like the ecology and the conservation part of the ecology and I was doing this really, really boring job to pay my master's tuition fees in a hospital and doing admin, being a secretary and literally getting bored out of my brain and slightly going mad. And I spoke to my mum one day and she was like, well, I know you're really busy. I was working three jobs at the time and doing the masters. She was like I know you're really busy, but it sounds like your jobs aren't very fulfilling. Can you do some volunteering or something just for a little bit to like give you that fulfillment? So I started volunteering for a charity called the conservation volunteers and I was doing environmental education. Absolutely loving it did half a day a week kept me sane while I was doing environmental education. Absolutely loving it did half a day a week kept me sane while I was doing these really boring admin jobs. Um, and it was all about, yeah, like working with pupils, about environmental education, but also like adults. We ran a um, an event we called eco dating and it was speed dating whilst planting trees and it was really good fun Organising. That was just such great fun.
Sarah:And whilst I was doing this, this job came up at SEI for this community scientist on the Opal project and it was to go out and talk to people about their local environment. And my mother-in-law said to me, like I think I saw it and thought, oh well, it needs a PhD. I don't have a PhD. It like needs like equivalent experience to a PhD. I don't have any of that, but I can talk to people. And she was like well, why don't you, why don't you apply and see? So I was like, okay, I'll apply, got the interview, spoke to them about eco-dating, which they loved, and they rang me up and they said said, we're going to offer you the job.
Sarah:And I went and then I said, oh sorry, can I just call you back, because I put the phone down. And then I continued to go after a bit and then rang back and said um, you know, I've excuse me, that wasn't very professional of me. And um, kaz Snell, the lady who hired me, she's now a professor as well. She she said, sarah, we didn't hire you for your professionalism, we're hiring you for your enthusiasm. And so basically from that day till now, I've been enthusing people about whatever topics, and it started off being like soil and worms and lichens on trees and water quality and stuff like that um, and now I'm spending half my time doing that relating to air quality stuff mainly um air quality, citizen science projects. And then in uh 2020 there was a vacancy at SEI to be the centre director and I thought I, like people, I get a bit frustrated about how we do stuff sometimes. Maybe I can do a better job, so I do that for half my time as well yeah, that that's always a gamble.
Simon:That going into the managing people and managing sector thing yeah, because nothing puts you off people faster than having to manage them, generally speaking yeah, yeah, but luckily I love people, so it works out really well brilliant, so yeah sorry, that was probably longer than you expected, simon, but I think it's quite a good story, isn't it of like not unexpectedly getting to where I am?
Simon:no, I think it's really interesting, you know, and, um, it's that enthusiasm comes across. You know, I I've never found, uh, I never thought I would find swabbing lettuces interesting, but I remember, about two years ago, you telling me, talking to me for about an hour, about the swabbing lettuce project. Yeah, um, it almost sounds like a joke. Every time you describe it you start smiling because you're going. People aren't going to believe that's the thing, but we had a project yeah, yeah, it is really a thing.
Sarah:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, and I had. And it again going back to school. When I was at secondary school, we had to have, we had an open evening for people who were choosing what their a levels were going to be or maybe it was a level anyway and my maths teacher said to me Sarah, you could sell ice to Eskimos. And OK, that's not very politically correct anymore, but you know, I do. You know, sales is actually quite a big part of what we do. You know, it's like talking to people, understanding what they're interested in and then talking to the like on both sides, like the community members that we want to work with. Talking to the like on both sides, like the community members that we want to work with, but also the researchers, like what is it they're interested in? And then trying to sell that bit in the middle which is a compromise between what can be done by the community participants and what the researchers want, and it's that kind of big mix in the middle of communication is just so important.
Simon:So, yeah, yeah, I don't know why it sprang into my head, but it's probably just as politically incorrect.
Simon:But you probably, uh, you've just moved on to selling air to asthmatics, um, but it's that.
Simon:It is that there's a selling involved in science and a selling involved in the communication of science that I think we need to learn a lot on. And that's something I wanted to ask you, because we've spoken several times about SAMI and I think that's been a really interesting project about infusing the next generation on something like air quality. It seems to me that as academics and as people in this space, we understand the importance of air quality and I, you know, I'm ad nauseum on it on social media, to people shouting into the void about how important it is. But if we're going to move air quality up the agenda, ratcheted up the gender both in society and in political circles, we've got to sell this idea and we've got to sell the import of of air quality and ventilation in spaces. What have you learned from things like sammy and from citizen science? What should we be doing better in the air quality community in general about talking and communicating on this esoteric, long-term subject that is air quality?
Sarah:yeah, I would say, work with people who are good at doing it. So, like you know, simon, you're an amazing communicator in this space and when we first met I was just like, whoa, you're doing such such great stuff. And I think it's you and people like you that people who aren't so good at communicating but have got those really important messages to get out there need to work with people like you to do that. And I think you know we can sometimes think that we should be good at everything but we're not. And so, working with people who are good at communicating and really like distilling down the things that we do know something about, and on lots of projects that I'm involved in, you know, we say, oh, can we communicate about this? And I'll go oh well, we don't actually have like the 100 evidence from that, but generally this is the point and I think it's like well, the general public have a really limited understanding of indoor air quality and so, therefore, stuff that we know as researchers and I don't, you know, I'm not an air quality researcher, but I know more than most people do about air quality we have a responsibility and a moral obligation to communicate about that, the moral obligation to communicate about that and the things that we don't have certainty about.
Sarah:We can say we don't have certainty about this, but the strong evidence is this direction. It's a bit like the whole kind of climate change thing there's a whole raft of evidence telling us that poor air quality is bad for our health. We might not know exactly the exact mechanisms by which that happens, but that shouldn't stop us from communicating about it. So, yeah, I think we need to learn from each other, learn from really good communicators about how they do it, and particularly about communicating about risks. I think is something we've got a lot of work to do, actually. So how do we communicate about it so that we don't scare people into doing nothing, we don't lead to denial that there's a problem? So, yeah, lots to learn on the communication front, I think.
Simon:Yeah, that communicating risk thing we haven't spent much time talking about, but it's a real passion of mine at the moment because it's so embedded in. Well, it's communication which is something I'm passionate about, but it's such an interesting topic and we've seen where it's gone right and wrong in that sustainability, environmental debate and we understand the power of doubt and sowing seeds of doubt into the dialogue and so on. There's so much we can learn and so so many have gone before us and so there's we should be able to foresee the dead ends, um, but this, this risk communication thing, seems like a real piece of the jigsaw puzzle that I haven't seen much about yet. I, I know in, I know in um, in the occupational hygiene world, that there's a lot around risk communication, because you know, um, exposure, science, things like that in the workplace, that they understand that quite well, um, but it hasn't seemed to have boiled down to the general air quality field yet yet, and that that's the bit I'm fascinated to talk to people about at the moment is how, how do we communicate this?
Simon:Because it like don't get me wrong, it it's hard for all of us and you know we take something like air quality in the home. You know, we, we understand scientifically. Now we think that cooking is one of the principal risk factors in our home. We're not suggesting for a moment that people not cook, yeah, so how do we communicate the risk that that presents in a way to get better outcome? Bang, there's citizen science. Right, there is one of the the key pieces to help us understand that, how we navigate that, because we have to involve the stakeholders, the people that are in those spaces, to understand how we present this information. What is important for people to know?
Sarah:yeah, you know yeah, and coming back to the agency piece again. So it's like how do we communicate about the risk, but also how do we make sure that we're giving people things that they can do, so, for example, cooking? We're not saying do not cook. We're saying you know, use an extractor fan, how you can tell if your extractor fan is working or not working. You know, that's the kind of we need to give people actions that they can actually take, and so by speaking to them, we can find out. Okay, well, is telling you to open a window every time you cook feasible, or are there other things that we could do that are more feasible?
Sarah:so yeah, no, no, really interesting so yeah, so I guess you want, you want risk experts to come onto your podcast next risk communication.
Simon:Yeah, it's. That's one of the things I'm I'm looking forward to talk to people about at the moment because I think that there's loads to learn there, as as in the citizen science, as in the social sciences, like behavioral science. All of this stuff is so important because you know, we know practically on the ground, particularly in housing. I always go back to this study that ian mordick was involved in years ago for bays, which was the principle, was a research into the effectiveness of natural ventilation in modern airtight homes. So it was a big study. They sourced 100 homes from developers. That one would assume was their best foot forward because they were giving it over for study of new homes that were naturally ventilated.
Simon:And of the 100 homes, 98% of them were non-compliant when they first visited. So catastrophic failure of compliance before they even got go, as is a lot of ventilation air quality research. To be honest, most of it is just measuring shit ventilation. But what always stuck with me from that study was, on first visit, something like 40 of the properties had between zero and 20 of their vents open. So there was a huge behavioral piece in there that, even if the homes had been compliant, there was a technical piece and a regulatory piece to solve, which is a big enough problem in its own but, even if that had been solved, the vast majority of the people were using the homes in a way that wouldn't have led to a good outcome either.
Simon:Yeah, and and that really stuck with me that this isn't something we fix from one end only. We have to understand how to engage with stakeholders well so that they understand why that thing is on it on the window and the importance of it, and how do we and what's important to them and how do we communicate? It's very difficult to tell somebody to leave a vent open if all they experience is a draft and a fan that makes a lot of noise and doesn't do much.
Sarah:Yeah. You know, it's a very common.
Simon:You know, good outcomes in the built environment is a complex piece of all the stakeholders and the citizens part of it, which in this case we tend to describe as the homeowners or tenants or whatever. It is an incredibly important pillar of those outcomes yeah, yeah.
Sarah:So why wouldn't you involve them in the research? Yeah?
Simon:no, totally make me think, actually do. Are there boundaries to what's considered citizen, like do supply chains? Are they? Is that citizen science? Is industry citizens like is it a particular cohort of stakeholders? So where are the boundaries? What? When does it stop being citizen science and become something else?
Sarah:yeah, it's.
Sarah:That's a really interesting question and it's something that I think citizen science researchers have kind of navel gazed around quite a lot and I think generally the meaning people have of citizens is kind of people who are getting involved in the projects in not a professional capacity, so they're doing this like in their volunteering time or in their spare time or whatever.
Sarah:Doing this like in their volunteering time or in their spare time or whatever, and that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay like you know, give people rewards for participating, so it could be like vouchers or something for their time. But yeah, I think if you were doing a project that was gathering air quality in offices and you were the people who were gathering the data in your offices were air quality like. Maybe they were like manufacturing ventilation systems or something or they were um, I don't know, they were the caretakers of the buildings or whatever I think you probably wouldn't class those as that as a citizen science project. You just say it's a participatory project with these um, caretakers of the building or whatever, because they aren't doing it in a sort of like a voluntary capacity. But that's not to say that you couldn't be a scientist or um something in your day job, but that you're not coming to the project in your role as the scientist in that field. Does that make sense?
Simon:yeah, I was gonna, I was actually gonna break. I was actually gonna present a scenario there that sprung to mind when you talked about that. Um, so if we took a public building right, a library, you could have citizens in that library being asked to participate in their experience of using that space from an air quality, noise, acoustics, so on yeah you could have staff, public servants, in that space who may also participate and contribute to that.
Simon:You may have engineers in that space. You know you're a traditional maintenance guy, you know that works in that building. But you might also have an FM company like a facility management business that's contracted in. Where's the dividing line for citizen science there in something as complex as that? Because that none of them let's just say none of them have any air quality expertise or acoustic expertise. They just happen to be one person fixes the taps, the other person's reading a book. Uh, where are the lines in citizen science? And something like that yeah.
Sarah:So I think I would.
Sarah:That I would definitely describe as a transdisciplinary project, because you've got lots of different disciplines involved in it and it sounds like your project would have kind of researchers, like academic researchers and all of these other people who aren't academic researchers.
Sarah:So that makes it transdisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary. So interdisciplinary is like I've got environmental scientists working with sociologists. That would be interdisciplinary. But if those people are also working with building managers, that make it transdisciplinary and so I'd say it's a transdisciplinary project. I would come back to the original, like first principle of citizen science, which is like are you actually generating new knowledge and understanding through that project? And then the other one which our group uses to help define citizen science, which is are people, volunteers, involved in collecting data for you? And if they are collecting data for you, then I would say that is a transdisciplinary citizen science project. But if they're not collecting data for you or you're just using them to I don't know, say you're just extractively getting them to survey their feelings on being in the building, I wouldn't class that a citizen science project fair enough.
Simon:So something I mean, because the school would be very similar to that, wouldn't it, in the sense that you'd have students, you'd have teachers who are paid to be there and maybe instructed to participate in some way, and you might even have facility management organisations managing estates and things like that.
Sarah:So I guess you know that complexity of transdisciplinary elements must factor in the sorts of projects that you do in that sense, yeah, yeah, definitely, and I think generally in my experience, the more of those groups that you can bring in, the better the project will be in terms of its outcomes and the actual impact that you will have in that project. But the more complicated it becomes, the more expensive it becomes, and that because you're having to have all of those conversations and manage those different expectations and things, um, so yeah, so I think if that, if that example project in a school was involving any of those, like the pupils, the people who aren't being paid to be there, basically if it was involving them, um, collecting data for you, then I think that would be classed as a citizen science project yeah, interesting um it's very blurry boundaries, though it's not like an exact no science.
Sarah:It's not an exact definition and I've got a early paper that I was involved in which defined what is citizen, what is science and what is citizen science, and even you know, like that was a very long messy paper, those kind of things but I suppose that's the the.
Simon:The beauty of new science is figuring out where those boundaries are and you know the framing, where it has value and where it doesn't, and all of that yeah and thinking really carefully about when is it appropriate to use and when isn't it appropriate to use.
Sarah:And if it is appropriate, which approach do I want to use. Do I want to use like contributory citizen science or collaborative, or do I want to do a co-created project and you know what budget do I have will help determine that. Or who are my partners? Who's interested in it? Who are the stakeholders? What do they want out of it? It's a really complex.
Simon:It's a complex way of doing research, but so rewarding, um, if it's done right I can imagine lots of people listening to this, that, um because there's quite a broad mix of people listen to this podcast um, from people in housing to academics. If, if this is pushing a lot of buttons for people which I'm guessing it is because it does for me where would people go to start to understand this a little bit more? If they're doing some research and say, actually I could do some proper help on something like this, what would you suggest? Like, where do you start to learn more about this, this kind of work?
Sarah:yeah, so I would have a look at the seiorg web pages, because we've got a nice kind of guide to which has got the 10 principles to citizen science in. It also links out to the exa ones, which is where they are originally, and we've also got lots of stuff around citizen science on our website. So that might be a good starting point and like as a group, so we've got including our phd students there's 10 of us working on this in SEI York now so we're really happy if you want to reach out to us to talk to us about, kind of your ideas for projects. Yeah, very happy to suggest what you should do and not do based on our previous failures. You know all our learnings from other projects. Yeah, really happy for people to reach out to us if they'd like to. But I think that, yeah, the kind of I would start from the 10 principles of citizen science, and EXA has got lots of resources on their website as well, so I'll give you those and you can pop them in the notes.
Simon:Brilliant and we've mentioned SAMI a couple of times but kind of skirted around it. But from a citizen science perspective, what have you most enjoyed? What's been the most rewarding part of that project? Because I know working with kids and air quality and science is incredibly rewarding, so I guess there's been some elements of sammy that that'd be really interesting for you oh yeah, it's been such a great project.
Sarah:So, yes, I would say the thing that's been most rewarding in sammy is seeing how the teachers have kind of run with what we've created.
Sarah:So we have this like amazing co-design process with our schools to co-design what we wanted this web app to look like and, you know, it's got the graphs in there so they can see the data it.
Sarah:It's got all these activities in there and I think, you know, working with teachers and with others to develop those and then have a product that people are like this is amazing. I'm using it with my year fives to explore, you know, whatever it is, and we had a talk last month by a teacher who wanted to show us what her class had been doing off on their own back. They decided to do this little survey about when did people feel sleepy in their classrooms, and then they were linking that to the data in the web app and it was just so amazing to see that she'd, you know, been inspired by what we'd created and just run with it, and I think that's been so inspiring is seeing how, yeah, the teachers and the pupils who've been interacting with sammy have used it in myriad ways that we could never have imagined, which has been, yeah, so rewarding and that must be a real metric of a successful citizen science project.
Simon:Is people understanding enough about the value of what they're doing that they start self-generating projects and interests off the back of absolutely those? Does that happen quite a bit in citizen science um, it can do and I think it does.
Sarah:If you, again, the more engaged you are with your participants, the more likely you are to have those outcomes.
Sarah:Um, you know, if we go back to the example of like just recording birds in your garden, like once a year, you know, potentially you're going to have much less transformative effects than if you're like working with somebody on a really close basis over a longer period of time.
Sarah:Um, so, yeah, I think what I really like about it is sometimes we don't even find out about these things until like years after they've happened. Or like there was one thing with sammy where, um, a group I won't name them, but a group um in a part of the country said oh yeah, we've been doing this, we've been working using the sammy resources for the last 18 months and we've been doing all of these sessions with it and we're about to have like a celebration event would you like to come along? And it was amazing to see that they'd been running with it. But also we were a bit like, if you told about us, about this, we could have helped so much more um, but, um, yeah, so you do see transformative effects, I think, um much more often than you would in other kind of approaches to doing research. Yeah, and because you're having that close interaction and that communication um with between the researchers and the participants yeah, it sounds amazing.
Simon:I will include a load of links and stuff in the show notes for this sarah, you've been very generous with your time this afternoon. I appreciate you talking to me so much. It's always a pleasure. Um, let's, let's keep in contact and we'll keep an eye on what's going on with sammy. And again, the offer if people want to understand a little bit more about citizen science, do reach out to you yeah, thank you so much, sim.
Sarah:It's been wonderful talking to you.
Simon:Thanks, a million. Thanks for listening. Before you go, can I ask a favour? If you enjoyed this podcast and know someone else who might be interested, do spread the word and let's keep building this community. This podcast was brought to you in partnership with 21 Degrees, lindab, aeco, ultra Protect and Imbiote All great companies who share the vision of the podcast and aren't here by accident. Your support of them helps their support of this show. Do check them out in the links and at airqualitymattersnet. See you next week.
