Argumentation"Participatory science and scientific communication: writing, publishing, valuing"
Participatory science and research (PRS) is receiving increasing attention from higher education and research institutions. Although PRS is not a new practice (see, for example, the bird census programs run by the Audubon1 Foundation since the early 20th century, or the development of participatory research in the 1970s2 ), 2021 and 2022 were years of institutional recognition in France of the importance of encouraging the development of practices. The order is part of the response of the state and the universities to the problems of the dissemination of scientific information (between false information and the fear of a possible distrust of science3), which, although not very recent, gained visibility during the health crisis linked to the Covid 19 pandemic. In fact, the 2020 Research Programming Law4 announces three actions to support participatory research as part of the guidelines for scientific mediation:
In 2021 and 2022, three ANR calls for projects will focus on science mediation and science-society relations to fund participatory science projects. In 2021, the SAPS5 (Science Avec et Pour la Société) accreditation program will oblige accredited institutions to organize themselves to facilitate all actions related to the relations between science and society, including the development of participatory science and research. Within the URFIST network, there is a growing interest in participatory research, which is reflected in the organization of numerous study days and meetings6. The issues addressed are related to ethics, co-collaboration/methodology, results, relations with civil society participants, etc. On the other hand, scientific communication and its possible transformations are less often studied. Yet the issues of participation, restitution and recognition raise questions specific to scientific and technical information in terms of auctoriality, valorization, and communication. On the occasion of the national study day of the Urfist network, which will take place on November 16, we would like to ask: 1) How scientific communication is changing as a result of the opening up of science and society; 2) the impact of participatory science and research on the nature, form and dissemination of scientific results (data, software, publications, patents). The study day will focus on three main topics: * Writing science in participatory science and research projects * Publishing the results of participatory science and research projects * Valuing the results of participatory science and research projects Scientific writing in PRS projects In terms of writing for peers, the development of open science could lead to a rethinking of scientific writing, the formalization of which has so far ensured both quality and acceptance. The opening up of laboratory notebooks, notebooks on the web platform "hypotheses.org"7, and the rise of pre-publications and data articles are all forms that question this formalization and, consequently, the qualification criteria for scientific communication. Similarly, open science, more than ever before, brings society into the focus of a science that must be seen as accessible and participatory. A number of experiments with new forms of writing and storytelling have been carried out, particularly in the social sciences: from science fiction with Haraway8 and Despret9, to non-academic writing with the Centre Emile Durkheim's10 "C'est pas très académique" workshops, to non-textual writing explored by the Passage laboratory in Bordeaux. For its part, the Fabrique des Écritures11 in Marseille works to research and create new narratives in the social sciences through a variety of media. For its part, participatory science and research produce collective publications using a variety of media (videos, radio broadcasts, etc.), and their attention to the restitution12 and accessibility of results make them interesting fields in which to observe the evolution of scientific writing. Here, the publication or even dissemination of results breaks away from the duality of being for peers and for a wider public.
The productions of participatory science and research raise, first of all, the question of defining the criteria of scientificity and quality applied to these new formats, as well as the question of the social acceptance of science13 among the various groups involved. It also raises questions about writing and the formalization of writing, as well as the integration of these documents into the scientific communication ecosystem, including the evaluation of research. At a time when data, software, and code are increasingly being published alongside the publications that these knowledge objects have made possible, which of these objects should be made accessible to demonstrate the accuracy of a participatory inquiry? What's more, if some of these texts, from protocols to results, are translated into a less technical, expert language, without being technical documentation, should we talk about popularization? What is this mediation, this translation that is not; a simplification, since it is aimed at project participants who, if not experts, are at least informed, concerned, already aware and producers of these results?
Publishing the results of PRS projects One of the pillars of scientific communication is publication. This takes at least three forms: the publication of results, in journals and other dissemination channels, after peer review; the publication of research questions and methodologies in notebooks, such as those on Hypothèse.org, where the validation of the notebook precedes the writing of the articles and therefore a priori the writing; and finally the publication of information about the project, on a website promoting the project, which is a self-validating writing, though necessarily validated by the number of readers and the reception of the texts. In all three cases, the aim of publishing research is to raise the profile of the project and its authors, thereby enhancing or promising to enhance the reputation of the authors, adding new lines to evaluation dossiers, facilitating the search for new funding, launching new projects or creating new teams, etc. Between individual and institutional recognition, publication relies on a double game of identification - of authors and institutions - and validation - of the scientific qualities of results, procedures and methods.
In order to play this game, signature rules have been established, with the author's name and affiliation, making it possible not only to identify, but also to cite, recognize14, and so on. But underneath this apparent simplicity lies a host of questions, including is everyone who signs an article the author15? Or is he or she one of the players? This is especially true for articles signed by 15 or more authors16. Or is it possible to publish as part of a collective? The parallel race for publication and evaluation has led to positions that refuse individual identification in order to combat the principle of the "highly cited researcher", as in the case of collective author Camille Nous17.
The development of PRS projects renews these questions of auctoriality all the more, since the conditions of research production are based on a mass of actors who are not always authors, but who are producers of data and sometimes of analyses. The sheer number of these author-actors calls into question the maximum number of authors an article can have. Anonymity in participation - anonymity due to the project as well as anonymity chosen at the time of writing - does not exclude the need for recognition, not linked to individual professional careers, but to the need for social recognition18. In this respect, it should be possible to recognize a collective, associative author whose name does not appear to have a first and last name19. Finally, does the journal's recognition of the author rest solely on the validated article, or on a whole network of elements that make the author valid: affiliation, institutional e-mail address, Orcid-type researcher identifier, etc20., all of which are exclusionary criteria for citizen researchers? These questions of auctoriality are so many threads that need to be woven together to understand whether PRS can lead researchers to other ways of recognizing their research than academic publication and peer review. Not to mention questions of copyright.
Promoting the results of PRS projects The final pillar of scholarly communication is that of valorization, which requires the involvement of other actors in addition to the authors and publishers mentioned above, namely scholarly communicators, librarians, *data scientists* and other research support professionals who complete the continuum of research skills and professions. Valorization of research results does not only take the form of publication. Library catalogs, art and science projects are just as much a part of valorization of results as is making data or articles available in open access or data visualization, not to mention many other forms of valorization. The goal of this diversity is to provide access to results and to facilitate their appropriation by peers and the general public in order to create new knowledge or simply to confirm or refute existing knowledge.
The development of open science policies, particularly in relation to data, and, of science and society policies, is significantly changing the dynamics of access. It is no longer just a question of providing access to publications, but also to other forms of output that are currently not included in library catalogs or are not very visible. It's no longer just about providing access to interpretations and analyses, but also to structured data that enables new interpretations and new data sets. It's no longer just about producing scholarly mediation artifacts conceived in a different time space from research, but about placing mediation at the center of scholarly production, as an integral part of the project. This is clearly seen in the specific role given to dissemination and communication issues in ANR and European funded projects.
The rise of PRSs renews these issues of access and adds an extra layer of complexity. In fact, the issues of access intersect with those of restitution. It's not just a question of valorization and publication in a dynamic of evaluation and career, but also of accountability. Both because citizen investment involves a form of moral counterpart to the restitution of results (generally found in all social sciences and the relationship with the field21), but also because the PRS challenge of helping people understand the scientific method cannot be satisfied with revealing only a small part of the research process, namely data collection. Conducting a PRS project requires a strong focus on the accessibility of research results, both in terms of tools for accessing documents and in terms of the readability of the documents themselves.
This raises the question of where the results are used, which may have to move from academic sites of knowledge (journals, university libraries) to other physical sites of knowledge (local libraries, museums, community centers, third places, etc.) and digital sites (from Wikipedia to YouTube), or even to sites that are not considered sites of knowledge (squares, streets, forests22, etc.). What are the places of knowledge that promote a wider reception of these results, and under what conditions of publication, openness, access and, ultimately, writing? This raises the question of how to identify these results as participatory research results. Are we even able to identify the publications related to PRS in order to increase their value? And finally, it raises the question of how the results are produced and disseminated, including their form, nature, and, of course, their authors, which brings us back to the earlier questions about writing and publishing science.
Texte rédigé par le comité scientifique de la Journée Nationale d'étude des Urfist, 2023 :
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1 La Fondation Audubon : https://www.audubon.org/2 Godrie, B., Juan, M., & Carrel, M. (2022). Recherches participatives et épistémologies radicales : Un état des lieux. Participations, 32(1), 11‑50. https://doi.org/10.3917/parti.032.0011 3 Voir l’article de The Conversation sur le sujet : https://theconversation.com/les-francais-et-la-chloroquine-une-defaite-de-la-culture-scientifique-174482 4 LOI n° 2020-1674 du 24 décembre 2020 de programmation de la recherche pour les années 2021 à 2030 et portant diverses dispositions relatives à la recherche et à l’enseignement supérieur (1), 2020-1674 (2020). https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000042738027 5 Le label SAPS : https://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/fr/criteres-du-label-science-avec-et-pour-la-societe-saps-49490 6 Ainsi : Les "Rencontres du tiers secteur scientifique" organisées fin 2020 à l'Université de Rennes 2. Le colloque "Des recherches participatives sur l'étude des sols : quel bilan ? Quels futurs ?", organisé en novembre 2021 par INRAE, l'ADEME et l'OFB. Le colloque "Recherches participatives en santé et bien-être des populations : défis et pratiques" organisé en mars 2022 par l'IRESP, Institut pour la recherche et la santé publique. Le Colloque "Enjeux éthiques des sciences et recherches participatives" organisé en novembre 2022 par l'Urfist de Bordeaux, INRAE, l'Université de Bordeaux et le Museum National Histoire Naturelle. Le Colloque du GIS Démocratie et participation, organisé en novembre 2022, sur le thème : Démocratie par temps sombre : autoritarismes, participations, expérimentations, qui a consacré plusieurs tables-rondes, rencontres et ateliers sur les recherches participatives. 7 Carnet Hypothèses.org : https://fr.hypotheses.org/ 8 Haraway, D. J. (2020). Vivre avec le trouble. Les Éditions des mondes à faire. 9 Despret, V. (2021). Autobiographie d’un poulpe : Et autres récits d’anticipation. Actes Sud. 10 https://www.centreemiledurkheim.fr/les-ateliers-de-recherche/atelier-cest-pas-tres-academique/ 11https://lafabriquedesecritures.fr/about/ 12 voir la triple traduction d'un article de recherche dans le cadre du projet Tree Guards, par Bastien Castagneyrol, 2021 13Noury, B. & Seguin, L. (2021). Participation et construction de l’acceptabilité sociale : fantasme ou réalité ?. Sciences Eaux & Territoires, 35, 42-45.https://doi.org/10.3917/set.035.0042 14Stewart, C. N. J. (2011). Authorship : Who’s an Author on a Scientific Paper and Why. In Research Ethics for Scientists (p. 105‑119). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119978862.ch8 15 Brand, A., Allen, L., Altman, M., Hlava, M., & Scott, J. (2015). Beyond authorship : Attribution, contribution, collaboration, and credit. Learned Publishing, 28(2), 151‑155. https://doi.org/10.1087/20150211 16Il y a plusieurs tentatives de dénomination des différents contributeurs et auteurs. On peut en lire une tentative dans le Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) : https://credit.niso.org/ et https://coop-ist.cirad.fr/etre-auteur/reconnaitre-tous-les-contributeurs/3-la-taxonomie-credit-pour-identifier-toutes-les-contributions 17L'idée portée par Rogue ESR 'est de faire de Camille Noûs la/le chercheur-euse la/le plus cité.e, pour montrer l'absurdité de l'évaluation de la recherche par le nombre d'articles publié. https://aoc.media/opinion/2021/04/26/chercher-pour-le-bien-commun/ 18Godrie, B., Juan, M. & Carrel, M. (2022). Recherches participatives et épistémologies radicales : un état des lieux. _Participations_, 32, 11-50. [https://doi.org/10.3917/parti.032.0011](https://doi.org/10.3917/parti.032.0011) paragraphe 53 19Voir l’expérience d’écriture et d’auctorialité que Pédauque, Roger T. : http://base.d-p-h.info/fr/fiches/dph/fiche-dph-8220.html 20Sarna-Wojcicki, D., Perret, M., Eitzel, M. V., Fortmann, L., & Bruno, I. (2018). Où sont passé·e·s les coauteurs·trices ? Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances, 122(2), 323‑360. 21Voir l’expérience québecoise : Godrie, B., & Heck, I. (2021). chapitre 29 : L’approche participative, la recherche-action et leurs principales stratégies d’enquête et d’inclusion des groupes subalternisés. In F. Piron & E. Arsenault, Guide décolonisé et universel de formation à la recherche en sciences sociales et humaines. Éditions science et bien commun.https://scienceetbiencommun.pressbooks.pub/projetthese/chapter/methodes-de-recherche-participative-recherche-action-et-sciences-citoyennes/ 22 Le projet ECODOC mené à l’Université de Bordeaux s’attache à créer des passerelles entre lieux de savoirs habituels et lieux de savoir de type forêts, littoral, etc. http://weburfist.univ-bordeaux.fr/ecodoc/ |
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