Presentation at JIFFI 2021

1. Social innovation, citizen science
& the place of Social Science
and Humanities:
the case of some
UGR-Medialab projects
Esteban Romero Frías
erf@ugr.es

2. Why Citizen Science?
● Uncertainty: managing ignorance and
multiple knowledge.
● Integration of multiple forms of
intelligence to create stronger
institutions: collective, expert, algorithmic,
political intelligence.
● A more democratic science: need to
strengthen democracy.
● Connections on multiple dimensions:
physical and digital; reconfiguration of
vertical and horizontal relations.
● Commitment to the local and the global.
● Ethics of care.
● Science as a commons.

3. Science as a Commons
● Overcome the public-private dichotomy
● Improved governance of science through citizen science.
● Community of practices.

4. Citizen Science
Citizen Humanities
Citizen Social Science
Photo by Adismara Putri Pradiri on Unsplash

5. Connections in Citizen Science
Digital transformation.
Public engagement.
Openness.
Humanities - Digital Humanities.
Gamification.
Inclusiveness: bias in participation.
Co-creation. Photo by Clint Adair on Unsplash

6. Key issues in Citizen Science
● Incentives: diverse interest and motivations. Ie.: Wikipedia.
● Ethical issues: intellectual property management.
● Hierachical power relations between researchers and
non-academic partners.
● Evaluation.
● Language.

7. Dimensions of a Citizen Science Project
● Coordination
● Participation
● Community
● Evaluation
● Openness
● Entrepreneurship (Innovation)
● Locality
(Prainsack, 2014) Photo by Ameen Fahmy on Unsplash

8. Why Social Innovation?
“Social innovation is understood as a new practice or initiative that makes it possible
to address societal challenges in various contexts, such as the environment,
education, employment, culture, health, and economic development, but also in terms
of achieving social goals (Viñals and Rodriguez 2013) and bringing about social
change (Dias and Partidário 2019).”
Butkevičienė et al. (2021: 310)

9. Why Social Innovation?
“Social innovation and citizen science serve similar purposes and are therefore
interconnected.
Social innovation is aligned with several purposes, such as to encourage diverse
change (e.g. social, political, systemic, behavioural); to prompt creativity; to act for
the societal good (e.g. solve social problems, improve the general quality of life); and
to pave the way for new opportunities (Farmer et al. 2018; Grimm et al. 2013;
Lagares Izidio et al. 2018; Nicolopoulou et al. 2017; Tsai- Hsun 2016).
Meanwhile, citizen science aims to solve certain societal issues through co-creation
and other participatory approaches as well as to contribute to scientific value (see
for more detail Haklay et al., this volume, Chap. 2).”
Butkevičienė et al. (2021: 312)

10. Research Laboratory for Digital Culture and Society
MediaLab UGR
@MedialabUGR
Directorate of Participation and Social Innovation

11. http://medialab.ugr.es/what-is-ugr-medialab/

13. Medialab UGR
Medialab UGR - Laboratory for the Research of Culture and Digital Society (http://medialab.ugr.es/) is a
lab created in 2015 within the Vice-Rectorate for Research and Knowledge Transfer at the University of
Granada. Medialab is a meeting place for the analysis, research, and dissemination of the possibilities that
digital technologies create in the culture and the society in general. It develops its activities in different
University spaces around the city, as well as in other places that do not belong to the institution. This
distributed concept mirrors the way the Lab develops projects in the internet and connects different
nodes of knowledge. It maintains fluid relationships with other institutions at a local, regional and
national level.

14. Why social innovation labs?
A social innovation laboratory is an instrument to think together with an
experimentation and prototyping approach, combining reflection and
orientation to action, thinking openly about our communities with awareness
of the global, with the aim of generating responses to the complex challenges of
our time, whether in neighborhoods, in public institutions, in companies, in
organizations in general, in society as a whole.

15. Labs
Laboratories can be understood as:
● Institutions. For example: Medialab UGR, LAAAB or Medialab Prado.
● Projects. For example, those resulting from a specific call for laboratories.
● Attitude, methodology, philosophy.
Types of laboratories:
● Citizen laboratories.
● Government laboratories / Govlabs.
● Living Labs.
● Fablabs / Makerspaces / Medialabs / Hacklabs.
● Other types of social laboratories.

16. Our values
● Proactivity and oriented towards action. From consumer to prosumer but
within a citizen perspective.
● Culture of participation and care.
● Diversity and inclusiveness.
● Digital culture.
● Open source projects.
● Local action and global connection. Scalability.
● Different types of knowledge.
● Way of learning: process and results go hand in hand.
● Documentation of the process as part of the learning.
● Cooperation versus competition.

17. Participatory projects

18. https://facultadcero.org
How to
redesign higher
education?

19. Facultad Cero

20. Facultad Cero
All universities that wish to participate in this initiative, as well as all faculty who individually wish to do
so, are called upon to participate. We also wanto to hear the voices of the students.
The values of this project are: innovation, openness, collaboration, critical thinking, and a clearly
proactive and constructive approach.
Two main characteristics:
● Bottom-up approach to complement the institutional approach.
● Participatory approach.

21. Institutions in the project

22. University Conferences

23. Facultad Cero Dialogues Program
https://facultadcero.org/estudiantes/

24. Facultad Cero Workshop Program
https://facultadcero.org/talleres/

26. labingranada.org

29. Labin Granada

32. ugrencasa.labingranada.org

33. laboratorio717.org

38. uninpublica.net

41. red.knowmetrics.org

44. RadioLab UGR programming grid

47. Back to labs

49. Hacker ethics
Openness
Transparency
Autonomy
Equality
Horizontality
Excellence
Self-demand
Civic and citizen

50. Digital Territories Conference

51. Thanks for your attention!
medialab.ugr.es
https://medialab.ugr.es/what-is-ugr-medialab/