Samenvatting

In the pilot project, Smart Emission 1, action research was carried out between 2015 and 2017 by an experimental citizen sensing network in the city of Nijmegen. This network used small sensors to map environmental pollution in the city on a fine-grained scale. A group of citizens actively shared ideas with the project team about where to measure and which local issues, called 'user cases', to tackle and analyse, for a period of little over a year. By holding meetings for citizens and experts to do ‘participatory sense-making’, a joint learning process was encouraged (Volten, 2016). Citizen science requires a significant investment of time from everyone involved. But, at the same time, the dialogue process can build mutual understanding between citizens and professionals from governments and knowledge institutions. By organising the dialogue between citizens and professionals, mutual trust can grow, and a common ‘language’ can develop. In Nijmegen, the city’s alderman concluded about the Smart Emission project that it is a better investment to free up time and money for citizen science than to conduct lengthy lawsuits between citizens and the local government about environmental pollution and perceived nuisance.