Citizen Science Engagement of Refugees

In the last decade, the number of refugees worldwide has more than doubled. Particularly, humanitarian crises and wars during the mid of the 2010s forced an unprecedented amount of people to flee their home countries. A substantial part of the refugees fled to Europe many of them to Austria. Given that a lot of them received a residence title, the key challenge for many receiving countries is the integration of refugees. One of the important aspects of a successful integration process is to involve individuals into the civil and political discourse by collective engagement. Due to a lack of the Austrian citizenship, most refugees do not have access to most of the institutionalized forms of participation. However, previous research suggests that civil and political engagement can contribute positively to integration and gives individuals the feeling of being an active part of society. Subsequently, such effects can improve the social cohesion in a society. The main research question in this Citizen Science project revolves around the participatory opportunities for refugees in Austria which allow them to be engaged in the political and civic discourse on national, regional, and local level. Besides collecting and researching the diverse policy and topical dimensions in which refugees participate, the projects also aim to increase visibility of missed and missing opportunities. This project follows the methodological approach of Citizen Science research in the Social Sciences. The transformation from being the object of the research endeavor to being a subject within the research project is ensured by the installment of an Advisory Board. Multiple collaborations with leading organizations in the area will help to find and recruit interested and engaged refugees which will have an active role in steering the project. A project week will be planned with help of the members of the Advisory Board. During the project week, all refugees in Austria will be invited to participate in the project by documenting and posting all participation opportunities they encounter on a Citizen Science app. Citizen scientists will also be encouraged to share their thoughts on areas that lack opportunities or could be improved. Next to the goal of documenting all available opportunities to participate for refugees in Austria, this project also aims to highlight deficits and missing links towards more civic and political engagement among refugees. Additionally, the projects should improve awareness for the importance of political and civic engagement and its relationship with successful integration. Furthermore, the projects will point towards areas with need of action by institutional and political actors.

The aim of our project "Citizen Science Engagement of Refugees" was to create an overview of opportunities for political and social participation for refugees in Austria. To this end, a database with actual experiences of refugees was to be created, documenting positive examples as well as obstacles and the institutions and individuals offering them. Due to the evolving situation during the project period, our focus was on refugees and displaced persons from Ukraine. We pursued a citizen science approach, i.e. the people affected were to become part of the researchers themselves and enrich our social science study with their own experiences and needs. To this end, we were able to recruit three people as citizen scientists, with whom we discussed their experiences of participation opportunities in Austria in several workshops and worked together on the research instruments. In this intensive exchange, we received valuable input for our work as researchers with vulnerable groups and were also able to familiarize the citizen scientists with the scientific research process. However, it became clear during the course of the project that the acute situation of Ukrainian refugees in Austria leaves little room for maneuver and that participation in the Austrian community is not a high priority. This experience is particularly important for us as researchers in order to reflect on our own procedures when dealing with participants in our studies.