Building Knowledge Together: Citizen Science, Communication, and Trust | 5 - 6 October 2026, Berlin

Trust in science is an essential factor to be considered in strengthening citizen engagement in participatory research. The latest Eurobarometer on citizens’ knowledge and attitudes toward science and technology reveals various range of trust in scientists across Europe. About half of Europeans doubt scientists’ independence on controversial issues due to industry funding, a perception unchanged since 2021 (European Commission. Directorate General for Research and Innovation. 2025). The specific needs for trust-building and institutional support align directly with the European Research Area Policy Agenda action on enhancing trust in science through participation, engagement, and science communication.
Especially in emerging citizen science environments, participation is limited and determined by the low public trust in science and research. Such an environment is Romania, where low participation rates, especially in environmental monitoring actions are deeply rooted in historical environmental habitus, blame-shifting and tight political constraints (Ștefănescu et al. 2025). When citizens perceive their contributions as insufficiently recognised, or not considered in the decision-making processes, participatory initiatives may instead weaken legitimacy and erode trust in science. In Romania, lower levels of perceived scientific knowledge correlate with weaker trust. Only 5% of citizens feel very well informed about science and technology (vs. 11% EU average), while 45% feel poorly informed about new scientific discoveries and 56% about environmental issues. At the same time, support for scientists taking an active role in policymaking has declined from 58% to 45% (European Commission. Directorate General for Research and Innovation. 2025). These trends point to lower confidence in scientific expertise and highlight the need for stronger science communication and participatory approaches such as citizen science to rebuild trust.
This paper examines how trust is built in Romania’s emerging citizen science ecosystem, where participatory initiatives are scattered, often short-lived, and frequently embedded in European research collaborations. It also draws attention to the limited national-level mapping of these initiatives and to the relative lack of theoretical scholarship on the factors shaping the development of citizen science in the broader Eastern European context. The study draws on the insights of a participatory multi-stakeholder workshop with researchers, communicators, and civil society practitioners organized in Romania in November 2025. The topic of communication between science and society is particularly of interest because a key gap identified in the literature is the limited availability of analytical studies examining the role of context- and community-appropriate communication in citizen science and community-based research (Wagenknecht et al. 2021).
Workshop discussions revealed both individual and institutional barriers to science communication. At the individual level, participants emphasized that trust in citizen science does not emerge simply from participation itself, but from how participation is communicated and organized. Participants’ accounts suggested that citizens lived experiences were more influential in building trust between researchers and the public than the quantity or complexity of the scientific information communicated. At the institutional level, especially in emerging citizen science environments such as Romania, participants stressed the need for stronger incentives and structural support for science communication within research institutions. In other instances, participation in citizen science was undermined by the lack of trust in institutions and decision-makers, which discouraged citizens in engaging with problem-solving and co-creation of solutions. Without institutional support, participatory practices remain difficult to sustain.
The paper proposes that trust in citizen science functions not only as an outcome of participation, but also as a precondition and as an ongoing relational process shaped by communication, institutional support, and reciprocity. It intends to gather empirical findings, practice insights, and policy reflections on trust in science and citizen participation from researchers and practitioners from different European countries, thus framing the Romanian case in a larger context. The paper seeks to surface both common challenges and context-specific factors shaping trust across diverse national settings.