Quantum games, symmetry in everyday life, evolution in the city, and the standstill between water, nature and agriculture. Four different research consortia, all awarded funding in the 2025 round of the Dutch Research Agenda 'Research along Routes by Consortia' (NWA-ORC), have in common that Citizen Science is built into the way research is done by the Citizen Science Lab of Leiden University.
On the 9th of November, NWO announced the consortia that will receive funding through the Dutch Research Agenda programme 'Research along Routes by Consortia' (NWA-ORC). The programme calls for broad consortia of universities, universities of applied sciences and societal partners to work on a theme from the Dutch Research Agenda for four years or more. Each of the awarded consortia receives 7.4 million euros to conduct their research and the Citizen Science Lab of Leiden University is part of four of them.
"Being part of four of these consortia is very rewarding, and shows that participatory research is becoming part of how Leiden University does interdisciplinary science."
Although the four consortia span a wide range of fields, from mathematics and quantum physics to evolutionary biology and landscape governance, they all share a participatory approach to knowledge co-production. This means that knowledge is not only created by researchers, but in collaboration with other people and groups involved in these themes.
For example, in HAIQ, serious game players' strategies feed into AI models for quantum mechanics. In NewSym, people submit photos of symmetry in nature and architecture which become data for classifying symmetries in math. In Living Planet, the public help observe urban evolutionary processes in real time. In RESOLVE, local knowledge and observations becomes part of the ecological monitoring network.
Participatory from the start
That is what the Citizen Science Lab works towards at Leiden University: the integration of participatory approaches in research from the design stage onwards. The four consortia build on what we have learned in projects such as eDNA Citizen Science, CitiObs, Leiden BuurtKennis and Expeditie Stadsnatuur, and will further develop the field with new methods for knowledge co-production.
"For several years now we have been working at local, national and international levels to build the Citizen Science Lab into an expertise centre for Citizen Science practice and research," says Margaret Gold, coordinator of the Citizen Science Lab. "Being part of four of these consortia is very rewarding, and shows that participatory research is becoming part of how Leiden University does interdisciplinary science. They connect well to the university's interfaculty themes Sustainability and biodiversity, Quantum and space, and AI for humans, society and science."
