Friday, 6 February 2026

Culture Wars - Scientists versus Citizens

I try and stay well away from culture wars, but it recently came to my attention that there is some new terminology I should be aware of:

Citizen Science - typically top-down. Usually initiated and managed by professional scientists or by institutions. To collect large amounts of data labour is "crowdsourced" to the public.

Community Science - typically bottom-up. Usually initiated by a group of people who have a specific concern about their environment. The community are co-creators and owners of the research and frame the question(s), design the study(ies), and interpret the results.

Rule of thumb: If a project asks you to "help us help science," it’s likely citizen science. If it asks "how can science help us?" it’s likely community science.

 


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