Course description
Behavioural risk factors such as physical inactivity, unhealthy dietary habits, sedentary behaviour, social isolation, and poor sleep contribute substantially to the burden of chronic disease and functional decline across the lifespan. Despite decades of research, many interventions aiming to change health-related behaviours achieve only modest and often unsustainable effects. In many cases, participants gradually return to their previous habits once the intervention ends, thereby limiting the long-term impact on the health outcomes the intervention was intended to improve. One important reason is that behavioural change occurs within complex social, cultural, environmental, and organizational contexts that are difficult to capture through traditional top-down research approaches.
Citizen science has emerged as a promising approach to address this challenge by actively involving citizens, communities, practitioners, and other stakeholders throughout the research process. Rather than positioning citizens solely as participants, citizen science engages them as contributors, co-creators, and partners in identifying problems, generating knowledge, developing interventions, and evaluating impact. This approach has the potential to improve the relevance, acceptability, implementation, and long-term sustainability of interventions targeting health-related behaviours.
However, designing and evaluating citizen science interventions presents unique methodological, ethical, and practical challenges. Researchers must navigate issues related to co-creation, power sharing, stakeholder engagement, data quality, implementation fidelity, process evaluation, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative evidence. They must also understand how citizen science can support the translation of knowledge into practice and contribute to sustainable behavioural and societal change. This requires insights not only from citizen science, but also from behavioural science and implementation science.
This course provides PhD students (and potentially early-career researchers) with a strong theoretical, practical, and interdisciplinary foundation in citizen science for behavioural change. Using examples from physical activity, nutrition, and related health behaviours, participants will explore the theoretical foundations of citizen science, behavioural change, and implementation science; learn how to design, conduct, and evaluate citizen science interventions; and develop skills to engage communities, collect and interpret data, and assess behavioural, implementation, and societal outcomes. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on translating citizen-generated knowledge into sustainable actions that can support healthier individuals and communities.
Intended learning outcome
Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:
1. Critically discuss the theoretical foundations, opportunities, and limitations of citizen science as an approach to behavioural change and public health research.
2. Design citizen science interventions that actively engage citizens and stakeholders in the co-creation of solutions targeting behavioural risk factors such as physical inactivity, unhealthy dietary habits, sedentary behaviour, and social isolation.
3. Develop logic models and theories of change linking citizen science activities to behavioural, community, and societal outcomes.
4. Apply appropriate methods for stakeholder engagement, co-creation, data collection, and process evaluation within citizen science projects.
5. Critically evaluate ethical, methodological, and implementation challenges associated with citizen science, including issues related to power dynamics, data quality, inclusiveness, and sustainability.
6. Select and justify appropriate behavioural, implementation, and societal outcome measures for citizen science interventions.
7. Assess how citizen-generated knowledge can be translated into sustainable actions, policies, and practices that support behavioural change and public health improvement.
8. Develop and present a citizen science project proposal or evaluation framework relevant to their own research area.
Teaching methods
The course combines theoretical input, practical exercises, collaborative learning, and critical reflection.
1. Interactive lectures introducing key concepts from citizen science, behavioural change, and implementation science.
2. Case-based learning using examples from physical activity, nutrition, sedentary behaviour, and related public health challenges.
3. Workshops on intervention design, stakeholder engagement, logic models, theories of change, and evaluation frameworks.
4. Critical appraisal and discussion of citizen science studies and real-world applications.
5. Peer feedback and reflection sessions on participants' own research projects and ideas.
6. Citizen Science Pressure Cooker Lab: a team-based simulation (possibly with real cases) in which participants work through the key stages of a citizen science intervention, including problem identification, stakeholder engagement, co-creation, intervention design, outcome selection, implementation planning, and evaluation.
7. Independent and group-based project work culminating in the development and presentation of a citizen science intervention or evaluation framework.
Course Fee
The course is free of charge for PhD students enrolled in Universities that have joined the Open market agreement and NorDoc.
For other participants there is a course fee of
DKK 5000
EUR 669