The coalition government in the UK has promised SE a major role in the restructuring and future delivery of public services, and legislation has been promised to in order that SEs can better compete against public and private sector organisations. The UK policy focus on SE is being replicated across much of the world. However policy support might be somewhat premature. The limited evidence base concerning SE as deliverers of public services is mixed. Most existing research has used descriptive case studies or anecdotal evidence to 'demonstrate' SE's potential to address a wide range of social problems. Others have generalized these iconic success stories to the wider population of SEs (Vasi, 2009). Despite the existence of counter-evidence (Bull, 2008), there is widespread belief that SEs are able to successfully combine social and economic goals to develop social cohesion, civic engagement and democratic renewal while delivering high quality public services (OTS, 2009). Basing policy on uncritical assumptions risks setting up SE for failure, and in the longer term, preventing SEs from developing an alternative, more inclusive model of society (Craig and Porter, 2006). We propose this seminar series to bring together academics from across the world with practitioners and policy makers in the United Kingdom in order to stimulate dialogue and reflection and to establish a critical research agenda informed by, and accessible to, practitioners. Given that critical inquiry draws upon a range of approaches our seminar series invokes those already employed in the field of SE research. On the most elementary level this comprises collating further the evidence base on SE so as to bring into view not only its promise but also its dangers and limitations. On a more explicitly critical note, we invoke different perspectives from Critical Theory and Organization Studies to construe SE as a new language (neologism) whose meaning has shifted away from the radical discourse of democratic renewal espoused by practitioners in the late 20th Century (Teasdale, 2011), and been captured by policy makers and elites espousing a withdrawal of the state from the direct delivery of public services and the marketisation of those (civic) areas of life traditionally predicated upon self-help and mutual aid (Dey, 2011 forthcoming). The first two seminars involve the deconstruction of the dominant SE discourse by demonstrating how prevailing forms of thinking impose certain limits to our understanding of SE. First, we draw upon a range of academic research and practitioner experiences to delineate the political and ideological 'making' of SE. Second, we draw upon a number of empirical reality tests (i.e. 'myth busting') to unpick taken for granted assumptions of SE. The second half of the series begins the task of reconstructing SE in a more radical and democratic light. Our third seminar explores the use of normative theory to offer a value based democratic alternative to the dominant managerial, rational choice model. The fourth seminar seeks to recast the democratic renewal of society based on the voices of SE practitioners and counter posing the language and meanings of these practitioners with dominant policy discourses. To permit genuine exchange between theory and practice, each seminar includes presentations from practitioners operating at local and national levels, all of whom have been involved in the design of this seminar series from the start. Our final seminar, which is chiefly concerned with co-constructing a prospective critical research agenda into SE, will aim to give apt weight to practitioners' viewpoints through an innovative 'open space' format. These will be collated to develop an internationally focused research agenda around SE and democratic renewal.

PROJECT APPROACH The C-STACS project will bring citizen science approaches to mental health. CHALLENGE: CITIZEN SCIENCE IS NEW TO MENTAL HEALTH Citizen science approaches have not yet been used at scale in mental health. We reviewed citizen science platforms. UK-based Zooniverse has no active, paused or finished mental health-related projects. EU-based eu-citizen.science has one project (CoAct) which includes mental health as one of several global concerns being addressed. USA-based scistarter.org has one project (neureka) using gamification for dementia research. The citizen science projects related to health which do exist typically involve biological and physical health research (e.g. www.cellslider.net, 100forParkinsons App, Colony B App). A more general internet search for citizen science and mental health identifies a few specific studies, e.g. the Emotional Brain Study addressing neuropsychological aspects of mental health and the MH2K Oldham project involving a youth-led approach to mental health, both in the UK, and the Games X Mental Health study exploring interactions between people with mental health problems and their informal carers in Spain. Two citizen science projects have taken place in the UK in relation to the overlapping area of wellbeing: the Secrets of Happiness study which ran in 2018 and has not published results, and the Great British Wellbeing Survey running in 2020. In relation to new projects, no mental health studies were funded as a UKRI Citizen Science Exploration Grant. Turning to publications, again very little has been written about citizen science and mental health. The 2020 ECSA report on characteristics of citizen science provides a useful foundation but no mental health specific guidance. A 2020 overview report by RAND Europe on emerging developments in citizen science identified the potential for new types of health research, such as personal health tracking / n-of-1 studies, but with no mention of mental health. A 2018 paper (https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daw086) on citizen science applied to public health provides a useful typology of project characteristics: Aims (investigation, education, collective good, action), Approaches (extreme, participatory science, distributed intelligence, crowd sourcing) and Size (local, mass). Our project will be mass participatory science, with aims of collective good (WP2) and action (WP3). Other papers have used citizen science in cognate areas, e.g. urban stress (https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0460-1). A 2019 position paper locates citizen science in relation to health research (https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2019.1619859), noting the connection with participatory action research and community-based participatory research traditions, and identifies community-driven 'n-of-we' studies which align with the current proposal. The paper also discusses general ethical issues of citizen science in health research, including consent, participation risks/benefits, data ownership and attribution, which have informed the WP1 focus on these issues. Finally, a search of the 'Citizen Science' journal identified one paper (https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.184) discussing patient partners in health research. WORK PACKAGES (WPs) WP1 develops a theoretical foundation for citizen science in mental health, and prepares for WP2 and WP3. Mental health has a very established tradition of public involvement, coproduction and peer-led research, and mapping between mental health and citizen science constructs will be a key project output. WPs 2 and 3 address specific challenges outlined in the case for support, using Zooniverse as an online platform to support mass participation. WP2 creates new knowledge about supporting mental health recovery and WP3 about how people living with mental health problems actually look after themselves. WP4 mobilises the findings from WPs 1 to 3 to maximise impact.