The Participation of People with Disabilities in (Citizen) Science Projects. Best Practice Examples from a Toolbox to Support Inclusive Research

People with disabilities encounter barriers and are thus restricted in their participation in social and societal areas, among that science. As a rising field of research, citizen science has lately been fostered to gain new insights in fields of research, especially application oriented research. As citizen science experiences strong expectations in research fields connected to civil life, the article argues that citizen science must enable full participation of people with disabilities. To grant people with disabilities’ access to these areas of life, participatory approaches should be the state of the art. Due to this, the article will start with a discursive discussion of different participatory approaches of various contexts. Thereby the different theoretical references, as (Participatory) Action Research, (Community-Based) Participatory Research, Practice Research, are presented and located into the methodological frame. After this, the focus is on the Citizen Science project “IncluScience – Disability Mainstreaming in science and practice” in which participatory approaches are being prepared in a target strand and bundled into a so-called “Citizen Science Toolbox”.