Marine Litter Citizen Science Research Agenda - An Expert Perspective on Advancing the Citizen and the Science in Citizen Science

海洋垃圾（人造固体废物）对海洋环境构成严重威胁，需要立即采取行动。研究表明，海洋垃圾与巨大的经济成本有关，对环境造成大规模破坏，并危害野生动物。例如，已发现690多个物种受到海洋垃圾的影响。最近的一项审查估计，仅一吨海洋塑料的集体社会，环境和经济成本就相当于3，300 - 33，000美元。公民科学项目让公众参与科学进程，通常是记录和清除在不同海洋环境中发现的海洋垃圾。例如，海洋保护协会全年举办活动，让公众清除和记录海滩上发现的垃圾，25年来，英国海岸清除了11，000多公吨垃圾。为了最大限度地提高这些项目对科学、志愿者和海洋环境的好处，重要的是要清楚地了解使用公民科学的障碍和好处。这样的洞察力将有助于制定明确的分步流程，以最大限度地发挥其效益。我们的研究团队参与了一个正在进行的英国-巴西项目。该项目的初步研究结果表明，必须对科学和公民科学家（志愿者）给予同等重视，以最大限度地提高这些项目的成果。公民科学产生的科学数据的质量和数量与志愿人员的经验、动机和持续参与密切相关。因此，我们需要更好地了解如何提高在这一领域进行的研究的质量，并改善参与公民科学的志愿者的经验。为了实现这些目标，我们需要在专家之间就如何做到这一点达成一致。为了获得最有意义的成果，我们需要与来自世界各地不同文化，社会，政治和环境背景下参与公民科学的一系列专家和积极的志愿者（公民科学家）进行合作。这将有助于最大限度地提高我们对广泛背景下成功的公民科学项目的理解。我们将通过两种方式与公民科学的用户（研究人员和实践者）进行接触，首先，利用团队的联系，来自世界各地的约160人将被要求完成在线问卷（包括运行这些倡议的用户和活跃的志愿者）。这将告诉我们更多关于他们如何以及为什么使用公民科学，他们在使用公民科学时遇到的主要障碍是什么，以及他们认为需要改进与海洋垃圾有关的公民科学。第二，大约35名专家将被邀请参加为期两天的研讨会，我们将讨论问卷调查的结果，并深入讨论改善公民科学所需的逐步过程。通过使用公民科学方面的国际专家，我们将能够扩展我们已经完成的工作，并研究不同国家的人们是否面临与我们在巴西和英国看到的不同的挑战，并确定适当的解决方案。通过我们的国际调查问卷和研讨会确定的领域将被发展成为研究重点，用于制定发展海洋垃圾公民科学的研究议程。这一研究议程将与实用指南摘要一起出版，并用于支持今后开展海洋垃圾公民科学活动。该项目还将使我们能够将推进研究议程所需的专家联系起来。通过开展这个项目，我们将能够实现我们的总体愿景，即了解如何推进与海洋垃圾有关的公民科学的实际方法。

Marine litter (manufactured solid waste) forms a serious threat to the marine environment and needs immediate action. Research shows us that marine litter is linked with huge financial costs, causes massive disruption to the environment, and harms wildlife. For example, over 690 species have been found to be impacted by marine litter. A recent review estimated that the collective social, environmental, and economic cost of one tonne of marine plastic alone can equate to $3,300-33,000.One effective way to help tackle marine litter is engaging the public through citizen science. Citizen science projects involve members of the public to help the scientific process, typically by recording and removing marine litter items found in different marine environments. For example, the Marine Conservation Society runs year-round events where members of the public remove and record litter items found on beaches, whereby over 11,000 metric tonnes of waste have been removed from the UK coast in 25 years. To maximise the benefits of these projects for science, the volunteers as well as the marine environment it is important to gain a clear insight into the obstacles and benefits of using citizen science. Such insight will then help develop clear step-by-step processes to maximise their benefit. Our research team has been involved in an ongoing UK-Brazilian project. Initial findings of this project identified the importance of placing equal importance to the science and the citizen scientists (the volunteers) to maximise outcomes of such projects. The quality and quantity of scientific data generated by citizen science is closely linked to volunteer experiences, motivations and continued engagement. We therefore need to better understand how to improve the quality of research conducted in this field and improve the experience of the volunteers involved in citizen science. To achieve these goals, we need to develop agreement amongst experts about how we can do this. To get the most meaningful outcomes we need to engage with a range of experts and active volunteers (the citizen scientists) involved in citizen science from around the world within different cultural, societal, political and environmental contexts. This will help maximise our understanding of successful citizen science projects for a broad context. We will engage with users (researchers and practitioners) of citizen science in two ways, first, using the team's connections, around 160 people from around the world will be asked to complete an online questionnaire (including users that run these initiatives and active volunteers). This will tell us more about how and why they use citizen science, what are the main obstacles they have encountered when using citizen science, and what they feel is needed to improve citizen science related to marine litter. Second, around 35 of the experts will be asked to attend a 2-day workshop where we will discuss the results from the questionnaire and have in-depth discussions about the step-by-step processes needed to improve citizen science. By using international experts in citizen science, we will be able to extend the work that we have already done and look at whether people in different countries face different challenges to those we see in Brazil and the UK and identify appropriate solutions. The areas that are identified through our international questionnaire and workshop will be developed into research priorities used to shape a research agenda for developing marine litter citizen science. This research agenda will be published alongside summary practical guidelines and used to support future activities into marine litter citizen science. This project will also allow us to link up the experts needed to take the research agenda forward. By conducting this project, we will be able to meet our overarching vision of understanding the practical ways in how citizen science related to marine litter can be advanced.