COESO · Project

Online Platform That Helps Organizations Run Citizen Science Projects With Real Public Input

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coeso.hypotheses.org

Imagine you want regular people — not just scientists — to help tackle big social questions like migration, urban planning, or cultural heritage. COESO built an online workspace called VERA where researchers and citizens can find each other, plan projects together, and actually create useful knowledge side by side. They tested this with 10 real pilot projects across Europe, covering everything from community history to environmental concerns. They also built tools to measure whether the collaboration between researchers and the public is actually working or just window dressing.

By the numbers

Citizen science pilot projects tested across Europe

Partner organizations in the consortium

European countries involved

Total project deliverables produced

The business problem

What needed solving

Organizations that need genuine public input — research funders, government agencies, civic tech companies — struggle to move beyond surface-level engagement like surveys. They have no reliable way to measure whether collaboration between experts and citizens is producing real results or just checking a box. This leads to wasted budgets on participation exercises that look good in reports but deliver little actionable knowledge.

The solution

What was built

COESO built VERA (Virtual Ecosystem for Research Activation), an online platform where researchers and citizens discover partners, co-design activities, and co-create knowledge. They also developed cooperation analytics tools including criteria grids, weighting methods, and protocols for tracking digital activity traces to measure collaboration quality. These were validated through 10 pilot projects across 35 deliverables.

Audience

Who needs this

Public engagement consultancies running citizen participation projectsResearch funding agencies evaluating citizen science grant applicationsCivic technology companies building public participation platformsGovernment agencies mandated to include public input in policy-makingCultural heritage organizations running community co-creation programs

Business applications

Who can put this to work

Market research and public engagement consulting

SME

Target: Consulting firms that help organizations gather public input for decision-making

If you are a public engagement consultancy struggling to move beyond surveys and focus groups — COESO developed VERA, a digital platform tested across 10 pilot projects in 6 countries that lets you co-design research activities with citizens and measure collaboration quality. The cooperation analytics tools give you hard data on whether your engagement efforts are actually producing results.

Research management and funding

enterprise

Target: Research funding agencies and science foundations

If you are a research funder trying to evaluate whether citizen science projects deliver genuine public involvement — COESO created cooperation analytics with criteria grids and weighting methods that measure collaboration quality between researchers and citizens. These tools were tested across 10 pilot projects and 16 partner organizations, giving you an evidence-based way to assess grant applications and project outcomes.

Civic technology and digital democracy

SME

Target: Civic tech companies building tools for public participation

If you are a civic tech company looking to expand beyond voting and petitions into deeper public knowledge creation — COESO built and tested VERA as part of the OPERAS Research Infrastructure, providing discovery, co-design, and co-creation tools. With 35 deliverables including collaboration measurement protocols, this gives you a validated toolset to integrate into your own platforms.

Frequently asked

Quick answers

What would it cost to use or license VERA?

COESO was funded as a Research and Innovation Action, and VERA is designed to become a core service of the OPERAS Research Infrastructure. Based on available project data, specific licensing or subscription costs are not disclosed. Organizations interested in access should contact the OPERAS infrastructure directly.

Can this scale beyond academic research to corporate use?

VERA was tested with 10 pilot projects across 6 countries, which demonstrates cross-border scalability within the research sector. However, the platform was specifically designed for social sciences and humanities citizen science. Adapting it for corporate public engagement would likely require customization.

Who owns the intellectual property and can I build on it?

The project was coordinated by École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in France under EU RIA funding. Based on available project data, VERA is positioned as part of OPERAS open research infrastructure, suggesting open-access principles apply. Specific IP terms should be confirmed with the coordinator.

How do you measure whether citizen collaboration is actually working?

COESO developed dedicated cooperation analytics including a criteria grid with calculation and weighting methods, plus a protocol for recovering computer traces of activity. This gives organizations quantifiable metrics on collaboration quality rather than relying on subjective assessments.

Is this only for social sciences or can it work for other fields?

COESO explicitly targets Social Sciences and Humanities, and all 10 pilot projects focused on SSH disciplines. While the collaboration measurement tools could theoretically apply more broadly, the platform and methodology were not tested outside SSH contexts.

What is the timeline from interest to deployment?

The project ran from 2021 to 2023 and is now closed. VERA was designed to continue as part of the OPERAS Research Infrastructure. Based on available project data, organizations would need to engage with OPERAS for current access timelines and onboarding processes.

Consortium

Who built it

The 16-partner consortium spans 6 countries (Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal) with a mix of 4 universities, 4 research organizations, 3 industry partners, and 5 other entities. The 19% industry ratio and only 2 SMEs signal this is heavily research-driven with limited commercial orientation. The coordinator is École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, a prestigious French research university — strong on academic credibility but not a typical technology commercialization leader. Companies looking for a ready-to-deploy product should set expectations accordingly; the value here is in validated methods and tools rather than turnkey solutions.

ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALESCoordinator · FR
Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboathirdparty · PT
FONDATION NATIONALE DES SCIENCES POLITIQUESparticipant · FR
FUNDACION IBERCIVISparticipant · ES
UNIVERSITE POLYTECHNIQUE HAUTS-DE-FRANCEparticipant · FR
RESEAU FRANCAIS DES INSTITUTS D'ETUDES AVANCEESparticipant · FR
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRSparticipant · FR
CENTRO EM REDE DE INVESTIGACAO EM ANTROPOLOGIAparticipant · PT
NET7 SRLparticipant · IT
MAX WEBER STIFTUNG DEUTSCHE GEISTESWISSENSCHAFTLICHE INSTITUTE IM AUSLANDparticipant · DE

How to reach the team

Reach out to École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France — likely through their OPERAS infrastructure contacts

Order a report on this consortium See ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES profile →

Next steps

Talk to the team behind this work.

SciTransfer can help you evaluate whether COESO's citizen engagement tools and cooperation analytics fit your organization's public participation needs. We connect you directly with the research team.

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