In this contribution, we report on the results of the workshop “Participatory research between expectations, aspirations and structural constraints”, held at the 7th Austrian Citizen Science Conference. Following the guiding topic of the conference – “Citizen Science - Why (actually) not?” – we investigated the challenges participatory citizen science projects may struggle with when adhering to existing funding programmes, and explored potential solutions. Tapping into the experiences of 14 participants from Austria, Germany and Switzerland, we first collected expectations toward participatory research ventures, then combined practical experiences with ethical considerations to jointly work out challenges and finally defined possible solutions. The thus developed requests and recommendations formed the basis for designing a “perfect” funding program for citizen science initiatives. The workshop revealed that citizen science projects require more flexible funding structures with regard to timing, budget and applied research methods, if they should support participatory research that involves citizens as equal partners in the whole research process.