Funding tool: Citizen Science
Project-ID: FTI25-C-008
Project start: 01. Juni 2026
Project end: 31. Mai 2029
Runtime: 36 months / not yet started
Funding amount: € 354.692,00

Brief summary:
Informal assistance by ordinary people plays a fundamental role in enabling individuals and communities to cope with the challenges of everyday life and crisis. This is particularly the case in rural semi-peripheric urban communities. However, the "informalization of civil society" also poses new challenges for professional aid agencies, political stakeholders, and social science. There is 1) a lack of knowledge about their practice and coordination dynamics, 2) limited knowledge about implicit and explicit mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion that limit their resilience, and 3) a need for sustainable interfaces between FA and IA. In response to these challenges, the project “KommHilf – In/formal Networks of Support in Rural Communities” aims to strengthen the interfaces between informal and formal support networks. It proposes an innovative approach to trace and map in/formal networking practices with participatory qualitative methods to co-create applicable knowledge for formal support organizations, policymakers, and local authorities, as well as basic scientific knowledge on the coordination of networked informal and formal support practices. In two participatory case studies in rural communities, citizen scientists, researchers, and members of professional aid agencies will co-design solutions to local challenges, provide a bottom-up guidebook for the volunteering-based third sector, and develop policy recommendations to increase the resilience of in/formal networking. To achieve these ambitious objectives, KommHilf will establish four labs in each local community to train and guide citizen scientists throughout the research process, from defining the challenge, data collection and analysis to co-designing local and organizational solutions. Its innovative combination of social theory and citizens’ expertise opens new perspectives on civic engagement. It contributes to the knowledge of timely social issues in a way that promotes science in rural communities.

Keywords:
Participatory Citizen Science, informal assistance, social resources, comparative community studies, disaster studies, social infrastructure