Citizen Science
Pablo Verde Ortega
Citizen science is a distinctly contemporary phenomenon that emerged in response to the professionalization of science that culminated in the last decades of the 19th century. Its fundamental feature is that it includes people without specialized training or professional scientific dedication in research. A more precise definition can be found in the White Paper on Citizen Science: “Citizen science refers to the participation of the general public in scientific research activities, when citizens actively contribute to science, either with their intellectual effort or surrounding knowledge, or with their tools and resources” (Serrano Sanz et al., 2014, p. 8).
This is one of the most cutting-edge scientific practices today. Its promotion is explicitly stated in Spain’s Organic Law on the University System (LOSU in Spanish), as well as in most Latin American countries, with varying levels of institutional and financial support (D’Onofrio et al., 2024). In the European Union, the European Citizen Science Platform is responsible for promoting and coordinating this type of initiative among the 27 member countries. This small sample reflects the growing political esteem in which citizen science is held and its optimistic prospects for the future.
The reasons for the institutional rise of citizen science can be explained by the very nature of conventional sciences. These constitute one of the most solid forms of knowledge available to human beings, and the results of their activity (propositional knowledge and technological artifacts) are an essential element for the functioning and cohesion of most contemporary societies. However, it is not a product free of social (or ecological) conflicts. Among the many facets that critical studies of science have pointed out, I would like to focus on the social isolationism that afflicts the intellectual and institutional architecture of many scientific disciplines.
1. Social frictions of “isolated” sciences
Research communities operate in autonomous circles and exchange knowledge mainly among peers or with university students. Most relationships with the non-academic world occur in the context of innovation and development, mainly in contact with private companies, or in government projects related to public health, infrastructure, security, defense, etc. Meanwhile, the relationship with civil society is mainly unilateral: scientific and technological advances fall on the population or are transmitted to it through dissemination. This is the model that Cash and co-authors (2006) call “loading dock science”: “You take it [scientific knowledge] out and leave it on the loading dock and say, ‘There it is.’ And then you walk away and come back in” (p. 484).
There are two main problems with the loading dock model. First, its undemocratic nature, which prevents public deliberation on what and how research is to be conducted, for what purposes, and in whose interests.
The second problem concerns its rigidity. From this perspective, citizens seem unable to do anything other than uncritically accept the knowledge (or technology) that is “loaded” or, conversely, adopt a confrontational attitude that can be accused of subscribing to denialism and pseudoscientific or regressive beliefs. This has been seen historically in cases such as opposition to nuclear power or genetically modified organisms, where the legitimate reservations of a section of the population about the adverse social and ecological effects of these technologies have been silenced by branding their critics as anti-scientific and opposed to progress (Wynne, 1992).
2. Citizen science as participatory praxis
In response to the tensions that can arise from this social isolation and the loading dock model, proposals to democratize various aspects of science have emerged in recent decades. One of these involves adding participatory scientific methodologies (with an emphasis on adding, not replacing) to more common scientific practices.
This type of methodology is based on the idea of generating a direct relationship with the different members of a community in order to co-construct knowledge relevant to the various parties involved (Vagh and Jacquez, 2020). The intensity of participation is a continuum ranging from simple outreach (informing people about what is being done) to shared leadership and co-design of research. The list of practices that can be grouped under the label of participatory is extensive and growing. However, the most important in terms of history, ambition, and public presence is citizen science.
There are many tactics that can be deployed to carry out successful citizen science. Some of the most commonly used are problem solving through video games (see Foldit[1]), participatory activities (such as participatory mapping: Nunes da Silva and Verbicaro, 2016) or crowdsourcing (very popular on biodiversity portals such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility).
3. Internal divisions of citizen science
Beyond these basic features, there are numerous internal divisions within citizen science. The most relevant here will be the bifurcation between research-oriented (functional) citizen science and socially oriented (or comprehensive) citizen science.
Functional citizen science is research-oriented citizen science that, although it includes non-professionals in the process (i.e., it functions as citizen science), does not respond to the needs of any community outside the scientific or academic world (or the market). This can be seen in the case of Foldit, where participants are motivated by curiosity, competitiveness, or a love for video games, but its results do not translate into any direct benefit for themselves (we cannot even say that they form a particular group with defined interests). In fact, this model has been criticized (Mirovski, 2017) as an opportunity in the context of the precarization and neoliberalization of academia to offload research tasks onto individuals who do the “dirty work” of professional scientists without receiving a salary for it. This is volunteer work that often only serves specific scientific or commercial interests (Vohland et al., 2019). This does not mean that scientific interests are spurious or that socially positive results cannot be derived from them (strictly speaking, the same could be said of commercial interests, although with considerable nuances). Foldit itself demonstrates this, insofar as it has sometimes been used to decipher viral protein structures, leading to advances in medicine (Khatib et al., 2011). The point is that this is not work with a specific community to investigate and directly address its problems.
On the contrary, socially oriented citizen science is comprehensive in the sense that it does not only include citizens, but also responds to the concerns of at least a part of those citizens. It is a science governed by the principle of shared social responsibility and which aspires, in its own scientific condition, to promote some kind of civic value or sensitization and/or to improve the living conditions of a given community. In contrast to the commodification and privatization of knowledge (see Fossil capitalism), comprehensive citizen science is proposed as common knowledge (Pelacho López, 2024), that is: a set of methodologies, artifacts, and theoretical and practical knowledge shared and maintained by a group or community, outside the state-market dichotomy and without being appropriated by any particular individual.
Nevertheless, the distinction between functional and comprehensive citizen science is not dichotomous, and it is possible to find mixed examples (two of which will be discussed below, Plastic Pirates and Pakistan Air Quality, prove this, since, although there is a promotion of values and a conception of knowledge as common, the work is not carried out with perfectly defined communities).
4. Values of comprehensive citizen science
Citizen science, in these terms, aims to finish with the deficit model, according to which: “the public lacks knowledge and experience and is waiting to be enlightened” (Strasser et al., 2019, p. 10). In this way, it seeks to: “Make science policy more responsive to people’s ‘understanding’ and ‘concerns’” (p. 3). It is also a way of doing science that allows for the inclusion of situated, embodied knowledge in which personal and community experience matters, blurring the boundary between science with epistemic-social authority and “non-scientific” knowledge of subordinate credibility, such as local knowledge associated with climate change (Chambon et al., 2024) or ethnobotany (Burgo Bencomo, 2021).
It also allows for a more complete and fluid relationship between scientific communities and other social sectors. This makes it much easier to consolidate scientific knowledge outside its usual circulation channels (thus avoiding the problems of the loading dock model), since any knowledge will achieve a more solid social implementation and acceptance the more diverse actors participate in its production and spread.
From a broad political perspective, this research contributes to the democratization of scientific practice and, by extension (albeit on a small scale), society as a whole. This is due to its participatory, horizontal, and self-organizing logic. In turn, given the relevance of science in informing public policy, the strength of citizen science in the overall scientific landscape can help to consolidate fairer, bottom-up policies that are in line with the needs and perspectives of communities, as opposed to an excessively unilateral, paternalistic, and barely debated legislative model.
5. Practical examples and conclusions
Below are three examples of sound citizen science, demonstrating its ability to successfully combine research and action with positive results for communities:
- Bioleft: is a project based at the National University of San Martín (Argentina) whose aim is to create a community for the exchange and improvement of open-source seeds. To this end, it seeks to train and include farmers, thus preventing them from becoming mere consumers of improved seeds that are the intellectual property of large companies. Its modus operandi consists of promoting non-transgenic seeds for organic and ecological agriculture. It has several participatory plant breeding programs based on the co-design of objectives through playful dynamics, experimental studies to find the best varieties, and digital field notebooks to share observations. The ultimate goal is to encourage productive and food sovereignty.
- Plastic pirates: This project was launched in 2016 as an initiative by universities and research centers in 13 European countries (in Spain, the University of Vic, the University of Burgos, and the CSIC’s IDAEA are participating) to track and collect macroplastics (and other materials) in rivers and, more recently, on coastlines, compile data on this issue, and raise awareness about the pollution of aquatic ecosystems. It is aimed at young people, mainly in primary and secondary schools, and it is the students themselves who do the actual collection work.
- Pakistan Air Quality Iniciative: In response to the government’s inaction against air pollution in Pakistan’s major cities (caused by and resulting from the lack of scientific studies on this issue at the national level), this citizen science proposal was developed with the mission of creating a network for crowdsourcing data on air quality in Pakistan. The mission is twofold: first, to raise public awareness of the poor state of the air, and second, to gather evidence to support their complaints to local politicians. The project is associated with Visual Air, a participatory atlas for measuring air quality.
Citizen science is a useful and important tool for overcoming the social isolation of conventional sciences and fostering open and democratic dialogue about the type of knowledge we want to develop and the type of societies we aspire to be. Although it can and should not replace conventional sciences, promoting it should become one of the pillars of current and future science policy.
Bibliography:
Papers, monographs and laws
Burgo Bencomo, B. (2021). El conocimiento tradicional y la etnobotánica en la gestión de la agricultura familiar. Revista Universidad y Sociedad 13(4). http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2218-36202021000400431
Cash, D., Borck, J. & Patt, A. (2006). Countering the Loading-Dock Approach to Linking Science and Decision Making. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 31(4), 465-494.
Chambon, M.; Wambiji, N.; Álvarez Fernández, S.; Azarian, C.; Ngunu Wandiga, J.; Vialard, J.; Ziveri, P. y Reyes-García, V. (2024). Weaving scientific and local knowledge on climate change impacts in coastal Kenya, Western Indian Ocean. Environmental Science and Policy 160, 103846
D’Onofrio, G., Arza, V. y Actis, G. (2024). Ciencia ciudadana en América Latina: perspectivas y políticas públicas. UNESDOC Biblioteca digital. Extraído de: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000388986.locale=es
Khatib, F., DiMaio, F., Foldit Contenders Group. et al. (2011). Crystal structure of a monomeric retroviral protease solved by protein folding game players. Natural Structural and Molecular Biology 18, 1175–1177 https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2119
Ley Orgánica 2/2023, de 22 de marzo, del Sistema Universitario (BOE núm.70, de 23 de marzo de 2023)
Mirowski, P. (2017). Against citizen science. Recuperado de Aeon: http://pombo.free.fr/mirowski18-.pdf
Pelacho López, M. T. (2024). Epistemología política de la ciencia ciudadana. Una aproximación desde la Teoría de los Bienes Comunes. [Tesis doctoral, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea]. http://hdl.handle.net/10810/75820
Serrano Sanz, F., Holocher-Ertl, T., Kislienger, B., Sanz García, F. & Silva, C. (2014). White Paper on Citizen Science for Europe. Socientize
Strasser, B. J., Baudry, J., Mahr, D., Sánchez, G. & Tancoigne, E. (2019). ‘Citizen Science’? Rethinking Science and Public Participation. Science & Technology Studies, 32(2), 52–76. doi: 10.23987/sts.60425
Vaghn, L. M. & Jacquez, F. (2020). Participatory Research Methods – Choice Points in the Research Process. Journal of Participatory Research Methods, 1(1) https://doi.org/10.35844/001c.13244
Vohland, K., Weißpflug, M., & Pettibone, L. (2019). Citizen Science and the Neoliberal Transformation of Science – an Ambivalent Relationship. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 4(1), 25. doi: 10.5334/cstp.186
Wynne, B. (1992). Uncertainty and environmental learning. Reconceiving science and policy in the preventive paradigm. Global environmental change, 2(2), 111-127.
Citizen science initiatives (online resources)
Bioleft: https://www.bioleft.org/es/
European Citizen Science Plataform: https://www.citizenscience.eu/
Foldit: https://fold.it/
Global Biodivesity Information Facility: https://www.gbif.org/
Pakistan Air Quality Iniciative: https://pakairquality.com/news/introducing-the-pakistan-air-quality-initiative/
Plastic Pirates: https://www.plastic-pirates.eu/es
[1] An online videogame designed by the University of Washington in which participants must fold fictional proteins in the best way possible. The finest results are then analyzed by researchers to see if they could correspond to unknown folds of real proteins.