A Comparative Study of the Drivers of Citizen Science Formation as A New Approach in Public Sector Policymaking

Innovation in governance and the use of new processes to address society's problems requires the use of a new approach. One of the new governance approaches is the interaction of citizens with the government and giving people a role to be engaged in decisions and participate in setting priorities. This study focused on citizen science as a tool for the approach of public and government participation. By reviewing the literature and using the strategy of content analysis, it has identified the drivers for the formation of citizens' science and has examined the drivers from the three perspectives of availability of context, the willingness of policymakers to adopt a participatory approach, and the willingness of citizens to participate. In this step, drivers such as protection of privacy and ownership of ideas, availability of technology for people's participation, trust of citizens and clarification of affairs, control of conflict of interest, formal education, income and amount of free time were identified. Then, with the comparative strategy, based on statistics and international indicators, the country's potential situation and its ability to implement collaborative projects have been compared with the three leading countries of America, Australia and Germany. In this regard, indicators were studied as representative of citizens' knowledge drivers in four countries. The findings showed that Iran is in a lower position than the mentioned countries in terms of the investigated indicators, which has created an unfavorable balance between citizens and policy makers, so that none of the parties are ready to accept a cooperative approach, and this makes maintain the status quo and makes the change difficult. At the end, suggestions are provided to improve the situation in the country.