Conceptual framework

Grassroots innovation for sustainability was conceptualized originally by Seyfang and Smith (2007) as “innovation networks of activists and organizations that lead to bottom-up solutions for sustainable development, solutions that respond to the local situation and the interests and values of the communities involved” (p.587). Smith et al. (2017) suggest three features that typify grassroots innovations (which may be social or socio-technical). First, they are grounded in third sector organizations which follow different strategies and forms of engagement with institutions. Second, they use alternative forms of knowledge production to dominant ones: public participation, epistemic justice, openness, and common good. Third, they are political actors and adapt their strategies of alliances with institutions to advance their own objectives. Similar to social enterprises, they are able to weave together the market, state, and community contexts (Terstriep, Rehfeld, and Kleverbeck 2020; Unceta et al. 2020).

The notion of grassroots innovation is grounded in the multi-level perspective (MLP), a conceptual framework developed for sustainability transitions (Geels 2002). MLP analyzes the dynamics of transitions at three analytical levels: the niches where grassroots innovation can develop away from regime selection pressures, the socio-technical regimes (the rather stable research and innovation systems with technologies, practices, and institutions), and the exogenous socio-technical landscape (external contextual factors such as climate change or the COVID-19 crisis). Yet, compared to mainstream market innovation, grassroots innovations face different challenges for their effective diffusion, replication, and upscaling processes, which may be overcome by activities conceptualized as intermediations.

Intermediation refers to the involvement of entities or individuals that facilitate and enhance the flow of knowledge and collaborations between different actors within an innovation system (Klerkx and Leeuwis 2009). In the context of sustainability transitions, intermediations facilitate critical reflection and empowering in niche (Smith et al. 2016), and help aggregate lessons across experiments (Matschoss and Heiskanen 2017). Intermediations also aim at reconfiguring socio-technical systems through lobbying activities (Klerkx and Leeuwis 2009; Seyfang et al. 2014), political advocacy work (Smith et al. 2016), championing strategies (Martiskainen and Kivimaa 2018), institutional rule-changing (Polzin, von Flotow, and Klerkx 2016), and disrupting incumbents of the dominant regime (Klerkx and Leeuwis 2009; Seyfang et al. 2014). Previous research on grassroots innovation also highlights the crucial role of intermediations to support volunteer communities with professional skills, and to establish links between niche actors and regime resource holders in multi-level institutional environments (Hargreaves et al. 2013; Lang, Chatterton, and Mullins 2020). Based on a literature review, Sovacool et al. (2020) identified 18 different functions or activities as intermediations. Van Welie et al. (2020) reduced this typology to three: (1) articulation of activities required to support experimentation and generalization of innovation, (2) alignment of dispersed resources and talents through networks, and (3) learning and training-related activities to enhance stakeholder capabilities and share goals and culture, that is, to establish new institutions. This last function includes knowledge development, knowledge dissemination, entrepreneurial activities, and legitimation of action.

All these authors highlighted the boundary work that agents perform in networks (Kanda et al. 2020; van Welie, Boon, and Truffer 2020) and in infrastructures (Hargreaves et al. 2013) to demarcate their activities from other forms of knowledge production. Drawing on this conceptual framework, we will characterize intermediations in third sector organizations both at the project (niche) and at the system (regime) levels. In this systemic approach to CS, our analytical framework gives importance to actors, networks, and infrastructures that are vectors of knowledge creation and social change (Loconto 2023). Such an approach depends on the socio-historical context, the actors involved in the process, and the chronology of events prior to and during a CS project.

Methodology and analysis

We collected the empirical material between 2019 and 2022, as part of a formative evaluation of an experimental subsidy to CS. In France, associations receive wage subsidies for their cultural and educational activities through a measure called FONJEP (Ministry of National Education and Youth) and through public policies on public understanding of sciences funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. They are not eligible for public funding for social innovation (Bouges et al. 2022). To overcome this imbalance, FONJEP-Recherche, a new public policy instrument, was piloted to fund the wage of ½ salaried position dedicated to CS for a period of three years. Between 2019 and 2021, the Ministry of National Education and Youth launched 3 calls for projects for FONJEP-Recherche and selected 60 projects. As part of the pilot, the steering committee of the call for projects commissioned the first author of this article² to manage a formative evaluation process through the ASIRPA real-time method (Matt et al. 2022). This method uses a real-time impact assessment tool (called impact pathway) to help project managers to maximize societal impacts of transformative research. The first author participated in the steering committee meetings prior to and after each call, participated in the three selection processes of grant winners, and co-organised three meetings of the professional network-to-be. She regularly presented and discussed her results with the steering committee. In addition, she conducted 50 interviews with members of the steering committee and with staff members of 35 associations (including grant winners). She also performed several days of participatory observation in four associations, and co-organized three one-day meetings to nurture a professional network of grant winners. At the end of the formative evaluation (2022), both authors organized three focus groups with the grant winners (22 participated) and three volunteers of the steering committee. The participants were invited to contribute to the impact pathway of the FONJEP-Recherche through their own experience of the experimentation. They were asked the following questions. What have you achieved in the past two years? What new and old players and partners have been involved? What changes have you observed in your organization? Among your partners? What hasn’t worked? What impact on society do you think FONJEP-Recherche can contribute to?

Data analysis involved several steps. We transcribed and encoded interviews using NVIVO software together with field notes. We also read websites and documents provided by interviewees (Supplemental File 1: Appendix A). First, we produced a summary of each association that received a subsidy, based on interviews and on information contained in the application form to the FONJEP-Recherche call. Overall, the history, mission, size, sector, values, projects, networks, and infrastructures are detailed for each association in thirty-five synthetic data sheets (Supplemental File 2: Appendix B) and two overview tables (Supplemental File 3: Supplemental Table 1 and Supplemental File 4: Table 2) We paid special attention to the organizations’ relationships with research institutions, network membership and coordination, and any other activities related to knowledge production and knowledge circulation. Second, we produced an analytical framework of research intermediation categories drawing on the literature on transition intermediations. In addition to data provided by the interviews and application files, this framework was fed with progress reports that the grant winners produced during participatory observations in situ and meetings of the professional network. Finally, the focus groups allowed us to assess the changes interviewees had observed, along with the barriers and levers of their contribution to CS. This allowed us to enrich our analysis framework with the contexts, realities, and difficulties of the research activities in the case studies.

Among the 35 associations that received subsidies, 31 were actually involved in CS processes, and therefore are included in this case study. Since it is not possible to describe extensively the research intermediations for each case in a single paper, we presented the results in three formats. Detailed data are provided in the supplemental files. The impact pathway has been published separately (Lhoste and Sardin 2022). In the following sections, we focus on a smaller number of cases that represent archetypal examples from the various dimensions we have identified as essential.

Social innovation

In the social innovation cluster, CS is aimed at producing actionable knowledge (Table 1; the “Activities” column). There are three categories of associations: leader associations, innovation brokers, and service associations. Leader associations manage a professional network and mutualize resources for their members. They provide a bundle of services that include facilitation and coordination of action-research projects in multi-actor networks. For instance, BIO-OC (Bio-occitanie) represents the interests of the organic food sector in the Occitanie Région. It supports change in practices through action-research projects. Innovation brokers orchestrate innovation networks (Batterink et al. 2010). For instance, Fab’Lim is a research-action-innovation center for sustainable and inclusive food systems that steers and advises social innovation in the Occitanie region (territoire). The association manages hybrid networks to address local problems, in partnerships with public authorities and research institutions. Service associations organize action-research projects to improve guidance services to a variety of excluded populations, and support services to professionals, whether social workers, sex workers, or artists. They identify emerging problems and co-create innovations in multi-actor networks. They may also produce relevant data for policy makers. They value epistemic justice and adopt strategies to build trust in science among excluded populations. For example, AF-UPP (Association fédérative des universités populaires de parents) is a network that support parents’ groups (popular universities) in action-research projects on education. The interviewee of AF-UPP testifies that at the beginning, parents suspect that scientists are lesson-givers who are disrespectful of their experiential knowledge. Therefore, AP-UPP signs up with analysts from unrelated disciplines to design a scientific protocol with groups of parents. They also develop participatory methods that respect the weaknesses of the most vulnerable members of society.

Natural sciences

This cluster includes associations generally considered as intermediaries between academia and non-professional scientists, although this notion has never been detailed. Most of these associations have a long-term engagement in natural resources management, and some of them are local activists. For example, PN (Picardie-Nature) has been involved in compiling lists of biodiversity in various marine species including seals since 1970, together with seal watching in the Somme bay. Unlike other naturalist associations that claim neutrality, PN regularly file a complaint against poachers, and engage in local controversies on wildlife regulation. They do not see these social actions as running counter to their scientific thoroughness.

Naturalist associations are recognized as community managers for amateur naturalists (Table 1; the column entitled “Activities”). Simply put, a community manager negotiates the connection between scientists and amateurs. But “amateur” refers to a heterogeneous category in terms of expertise (whether academics or field experience), degree of motivation for collecting samples (for pleasure or work), occupational status (employee or volunteer), and relationship to knowledge (bird watcher or resource management). At the end, PN members may be more motivated by seal surveillance than by sample picking. The community manager has to mobilize her knowledge on the community’s preferences, on animals’ lifestyle and behavior, and on scientists’ expectations, to design suitable collection protocols. She has also to enroll researchers in new research programs initiated by the expert amateurs.

Framing and coordinating citizen science projects

Our case studies illustrate the diversity of CS projects. They also offer an overview of the complexity of nurturing an epistemic community, that is, a group of people with shared interests, focused on generating and spreading knowledge within a specific field. This community slowly emerges through a bundle of intermediations accomplished during the projects. Intermediations change over time, from animating heterogeneous collectives to framing research questions to disseminating output and outcomes. Dissemination includes scaling of innovations through replication, advocating for policies, and training of professionals to transform rules, cultures, and norms within a system. Our case study abounds with examples in a variety of sectors. In urban planning, APPUII (Alternatives pour des projets urbains ici et à l’international) offers counter-expertise to a non-participatory rehabilitation project, establishes shared diagnosis with inhabitants, and proposes alternative projects. In social work and inclusion, FAPI (Futur au présent international) co-construct and assess action-research programs with a network of researchers and West African and French child protection nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The organization has developed a social program based on the needs of unaccompanied minors and exchanges between French and Senegalese social workers. Its participation in an Erasmus Plus program should allow its extension to other parts of West Africa and Europe. The association also organizes the generalization of practices within professional networks and allows “learning in project and remembering in networks” (Grabher 2004).

The above examples draw from social innovation. In natural sciences, the goals and challenges of intermediations are different. We observed that managing an amateur community involves more than just mobilizing citizens to collect data for scientists. The case studies highlight the often-ignored expertise of the association’s staff. The naturalist associations manage either small communities of volunteers collecting and handling biological samples, or large virtual communities uploading data on a digital platform. In either case, associations are intermediaries. In PN, a professional ecologist supervises the volunteers who count seals and monitor their mating habits on Picardy beaches. She trains non-experts, validates their observations directly in situ, and can even award them expert status. She also translates the volunteers’ experiential knowledge into protocols co-written with academic researchers not involved in the fieldwork. The digital platform of Tela Botanica has been developed to provide training and meeting facilities for communities to manage themselves. Tela Botanica also organizes on-site gatherings for community members. The staff encourages scientists to attend these meetings, and assists them in their communication and outreach activities. In addition, the integration of the repository of French names produced by the Tela Botanica’s community into the national taxonomic repository of the flora required a time-consuming boundary work.

Designing and co-managing infrastructures

Several of the associations studied manage infrastructures for intermediation: collaborative platforms for community management, a variety of observatories, open labs, and publishing houses (Table 2). The open labs claim to enact sustainability transitions in territories. For instance, Evaleco has been created for this purpose. The association manages an open lab for research and innovation. Intermediations aim at building co-learning strategies in hybrid groups, experimentation, and raising questions on socioeconomic models and governance. Our observations confirm previous results on open labs showing that they provide niches to nurture social innovations and experiment with new ways of governing and learning (Lhoste 2020; Terstriep, Rehfeld, and Kleverbeck 2020). At the local level, the association’s goal is to extend the collective and its portfolio of projects, and to bring together organizations and research institutions into research and innovation networks. At regime level, these open labs belong to national networks and thus can contribute to transformation of the system.

Observatories are fed by the associations’ databases and co-managed with institutions. In natural sciences, both Tela Botanica and CREA manage two supplementary virtual collaborative platforms and their corresponding databases. The first one was created by CREA to observe the impact of climate change on mountain fauna and flora, and the second one was co-founded by Tela Botanica and CNRS in 2008 to monitor the phenology of flora and fauna in the plains of metropolitan France. Both platforms work in partnership and share their data and results. In social innovation, La Fonda manages a digital database of social innovations in collaboration with a public organization, the General Commission for Territorial Equality (Commissariat général à l’égalité des territoires), and RNMA (Réseau national des maisons des associations) manages local observatories of associative life, a result of a long-term collaboration with a CNRS lab (Tchernonog and Prouteau 2019).

Observatories embody partnerships between associations and institutions. Intermediations allow the construction of coalitions around a common vision for transitions. But the governance of these hybrid networks often does not favor associations. In natural sciences, the staff of Tela Botanica testified to the difficulties they encountered in managing data ownership with public research organizations—a difficulty encountered because the latter have normalized intellectual property with their private partners, but they confuse public goods with commons. This raises questions about the governance of data collected in CS projects.

Networking with institutions

Networks and infrastructures connect associations to institutions. Networks facilitate reflexivity, organize working groups, and steer research projects. They may also merge with other networks to organize training and advocacy, and construct coalitions around a common vision. These networks are connected to institutions at the local and national levels, and their boundary work progressively transforms them. For example, one of the parents’ groups that participated in an AF-UPP program is working together with a police station to improve their relationships with families and youth. At the national level, AF-UPP is connected to Caisse nationale d’allocations familales, a public institution that finances all family benefit schemes, and the Ministries of Health and Solidarities, and of National Education. This hybrid network brings together associations, professionals, and institutions to change public policy and establish new rules and practices.

Networking with institutions is a long, time consuming, and uncertain process. Our observations reveal how it is constructed in action. Whether an association networks with academics depends on the association’s history. Half of our case studies have been established by scientists who are often affiliated to a public laboratory. Most of them invite researchers to sit on their boards or create scientific councils that facilitate regular exchanges with academics outside the research partnership. They also organize seminars involving academic researchers and field workers. They participate in training programs. Students play an important role in the creation of links between labs and associations through research projects often supervised by a senior in the association (master’s degree or PhD).

Facilitating interactions between citizens and scientists

Intermediations include knowledge brokering between citizens and scientists. Knowledge brokering is bidirectional between actors from different worlds (Kivimaa et al. 2019). In other words, associations symmetrically translate knowledge and cultures for both parties. When they are community managers, they first negotiate between human and non-human agents—whether living creatures or objects—to articulate the expectations of every type of contributor. They develop tools and intermediary objects to enable the building of trust, to construct a common vision, and to identify the barriers to participation of both scientists and citizens. They are key actors of more horizontal relationships in CS processes. Secondly, they ensure that the association’s program is consistent with the aspirations of the extended peer community, whether the contributors are full members of the association, or volunteers with no decision power in the association’s board. The community managers constantly adapt to transformations of the community and anticipate conflicts and trade-offs between differing motivations, interests, and functions within the community. For example, Tela Botanica recently revised its strategic action plan after staff members realized that most of its contributors were not hobbyists anymore, but professionals who were using biodiversity monitoring as a tool for decision-making.

Intermediations in CS often include legitimizing experiential knowledge. Association staff and expert volunteers are not only spokespersons for excluded people; they encourage them to speak out to assert their experiential knowledge. They can manage tensions among actors, design and use adapted tools and resources, and convince either volunteers or scientists to contribute to mixed groups and CSs projects. They also design new governance frameworks with boards including representatives of each category of participants. For example, the board of AF-UPP includes parents, academics, stakeholders, and social workers. AF-UPP developed a method of knowledge cross-fertilization based on over 20 years of action-research with groups of parents. AF-UPP organized the publication of research results and their presentation during a congress for academics and stakeholders.

Finally, associations engage in advocacy activities for inclusion and legitimation of experiential learning. Obviously, social innovation needs more intermediations for crossing knowledge, whether within research projects or governance bodies, and it is also the domain where it is the most actively defended. In the three associations in nature conservation, we have observed tensions because their members are at the boundary between two worlds, that of normal science and that of amateur practices.