Workshop 1: Conference on public participation in scientific research: an international interdisciplinary conference

Benz, Seth; Miller-Rushing, Abraham; Domroese, Meg; Ballard, Heidi; Bonney, Rick; DeFalco, Tony; Newman, Sarah; Shirk, Jennifer; Young, Alison

From Official Background: “Citizen science and other forms of public participation in scientific research (PPSR) are rapidly expanding our knowledge of the world around us, enhancing public understanding of scientific processes, and contributing to management and policy decisions (Shirk et al. 2012). Projects span many fields—including astronomy, molecular biology, human and environmental health, ecology, natural resource management, and conservation biology. Despite the rapid growth and impact of PPSR, there is limited communication of insights across projects and fields of study, and few venues for engaging participatory science practitioners across disciplines. To help meet those needs, we convened an open conference on PPSR that aimed to formalize PPSR as a field of study and practice; stimulate communication, collaboration, and innovation; and develop an organizational structure for the field of PPSR. The time is ripe to unite and formalize this field. Over the past five years, interest in and funding for citizen science and PPSR has increased dramatically among professional scientists, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and public participants, spurring the development of new research projects, technologies, and programmatic approaches (Citizen Science Project Registry, www. citizenscience.org/projects). This interest has resulted in a rapidly growing number of programs and insights, as evidenced by the upward trend in peer-reviewed publications (Fig. 1), as well as a book reviewing the field (Dickinson and Bonney 2012) and a special issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment reviewing the role of PPSR in ecology (Henderson 2012). However, for the most part such insights are disconnected across a number of fields and are not well communicated to researchers and practitioners in different disciplines. For example, new techniques in improving educational outcomes in astronomy-related projects may not be found easily by practitioners in environmental fields. Along with this increased interest in and implementation of PPSR has come recognition of challenges in demonstrating explicit project outcomes for both science and education. These challenges have resulted in legitimate criticisms of PPSR projects along with some misunderstandings concerning their utility. Because the field is young, dispersed across many disciplines, and not well defined, individuals unfamiliar with PPSR may be hard pressed to evaluate its rigor and potential. Recent invitational meetings have sought to bring together leaders in PPSR to address these issues and to improve communication, innovation, and best practices across the field. They have led to a toolkit for citizen science project development (Bonney et al. 2009, www.citizenscience.org/toolkit), creation of the web site citizenscience.org, which supports a community of ~2000 subscribers, and the development of best practices for PPSR data management (McEver et al. 2007, 2011). These workshops also have identified the need for open, national conferences and a professional association to advance the field. The conference held in Portland, Oregon in 2012 was a first step in those directions.”

Workshop 1: Conference on public participation in scientific research: an international interdisciplinary conference

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