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Citizen science exceeds disciplinary and institutional boundaries

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Press release,

Citizen science, or in German “Bürgerwissenschaft” or “Bürgerforschung,” includes much more than the definition given in the Oxford dictionary: “the collection and analysis of data relating to the natural world by members of the general public, typically as part of a collaborative project with professional scientists.”[1] Current debate includes under citizen science all scientific activities that led by or including citizens. The newly published study in PLOS ONE reveals that although a large number of activities include institutionally based researchers – 67% of projects include universities and research institutes as partners – societal and other groups (such as NGOs and even public agencies) also initiate or are engaged in citizen science projects.

The study was based on nearly 100 projects listed on the German and Austrian citizen science platforms (http://www.buergerschaffenwissen.de and http://www.citizen-science.at) – those activities that consider themselves citizen science. A large number of projects (42%) deal with biological issues, but environmental and health questions also play an important role. Especially surprising is the number of projects in the social sciences and humanities, even though the terminology in these fields is often different and more focused, for example, on participatory aspects, such as in participatory action research.

An important result is that roughly 40% of projects included societal groups or individuals – actors often overlooked by analyses based in the peer-review literature. This demonstrates the transformational importance of citizen science: societally relevant issues can be explored using scientifically based methods and include societal actors in the discourse. In some projects, scientific outcomes are not the primary goal. Instead, issues such as regional development, education and empowerment are key drivers. The significant role of scientific infrastructure networks such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is also interesting, as these groups deal with data quality control and availability.

The results of this study come from a research stay at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at the Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität in Munich as well as the project ‚BürGEr schaffen Wissen – WISSen schafft Bürger’ (Citizens create knowledge, GEWISS), funded by the Germany Federal Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF) as a consortium led by institutes in the Helmholtz and Leibniz Associations with their university and non-university partners. The GEWISS consortium consisted of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig with the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena; as well as the Berlin-Brandenburg Institute for Biodiversity Research (BBIB) with the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN), Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) and the Freie Universität Berlin. Additional project partners were the Leibniz Research Alliance on Biodiversity (LVB) and Wissenschaft im Dialog (WiD).

 

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Link to the Paper in PLOS ONE: (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178778)

 

 



 

 

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