The VERITY Citizen Media Lab and Validation Experiment invites citizen scientists, representative of civil society organisations and students from all disciplines all around Europe to contribute with their unbiased outsider perspective to guarantee the relevance and usability of recommendations for policymakers, researchers and other stakeholders on how to strengthen trust in science.
The research activity takes place online between 3rd and 30th of April 2025 and will take about 6 hours of your time in total. The activity will start on 3rd April with an online training and end on 30th April with an online group-verdict meeting (during the Easter holidays there will be no activities).
Trust in science matters…
VERITY (deVEloping scientific Research with ethIcs and inTegritY) is a European project (2022 – 2025) promoting the science-society collaboration within the European Union. At its core, the project recognises the importance of public trust in science. The overall approach of the project is guided by three questions: (1) what people trust, (2) whom people trust and (3) how trust is built? In this context, trust can be understood as the foundation upon which scientific progress and societal well-being are built.
Format of the Citizen Media Lab
From 7th to 11th April 2025 daily online postings on a private group on the social media platform Reddit will feature various VERITY recommendations that our volunteer researchers are invited to individually assess and discuss with the other participants. Each recommendation deals with a specific way to foster public trust in science, e.g. through provision of excellent and open science, public engagement and stakeholder outreach, awareness-raising on (social) media or promotion of critical thinking.
Each recommendation will be spelled out by using visual and audiovisual storytelling methods, embedding its main findings into an engaging storytelling format. As a result, we hope to uncover key themes and patterns that might have been overlooked by the VERITY researcher team when drafting the recommendations.
In general, the citizen media experiment is based on the voluntary participation of each individual participant. The information you provide during the registration process will be pseudonymised by removing your name and all other identifying features. Your identity, views, and experiences will remain confidential throughout the whole activity. All content and answers will be deleted after the end of project (September 2025).
Participants can request a certificate of participation in the VERITY Citizen Media Lab and Validation Experiment.
Registration
We invite you to register until the 31st of March 2025 (EOD) under this link.
Responsible research organisations
The VERITY project is coordinated by Trilateral Research (TRI, Ireland) and funded by the European Union. The Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI, Austria) is leading the Citizen Media Lab research activity and will respond to your questions addressed to verity@zsi.at
If you want to learn more about the VERITY project, please visit our website.
Further enquiries
Ms Pamela Bartar
Centre for Social Innovation GmbH, Linke Wienzeile 246, Vienna Austria
Email: verity@zsi.at Website: www.zsi.at
