Ine Van Hoyweghen, professor in the Centre of Sociological
Research, explains how citizen science plays a key role in pushing towards
innovation to solve global challenges, through openness in science and openness
towards society. Bringing citizens into science helps to gain public trust in
science as they get insight into how science is done. Citizen science can be
defined as scientific research conducted in whole or part by amateur or
nonprofessional scientists. Citizen involvement can be at different levels: from
contribution and collaboration to co-creation involving citizens actively from
the start of research also in planning and hypothesis making. A challenge can
be the lack of diversity amongst participating citizens, as those engaged tend
to have a high educational background. Also uncertainty over ownership of data ‒
scientists versus citizens ‒ can pose challenges. For young scientists, a fear
may be that involving citizens means the impact of research publications that
matter in their career may be lower. On
the contrary, citizen science papers are often cited more. Another fear may be
that academic freedom may be sacrificed. However, it is not about letting the public decide
what will be research, but having the capacity to listen to them.