Concept Note: Citizen Science Global Partnership

Professional science alone provides limited information, and often fails to engage or enable the public.  By involving members of the public in authentic scientific research, citizen science emphasizes collaborative intelligence and co-creation to help researchers and policymakers understand global problems and support local solutions.  But fully realizing the potential of citizen science requires coordination, mobilization, and partnership across geographies, sectors, and research domains.

The Citizen Science Global Partnership (“Citizen Science Global”) is a network-of-networks that seeks to promote and advance citizen science for a sustainable world.  Launched in December 2017 at the UN Science-Policy-Business Forum on the Environment, Citizen Science Global brings together existing networks of citizen science researchers and practitioners with advisory boards representing policy, business, and community-based perspectives.  By 2020, Citizen Science Global will be a self-sustaining umbrella organization that will:

·         Offer a coordinated point of entry for government, NGO, and business partners seeking to collaborate with the global citizen science community.

·         Network, support and seed 7+ networks that support and advance citizen science, including existing citizen science associations in the US, Europe, and Australia and emerging networks in Africa and Asia.

·         Network, support, and seed 3+ consortia of citizen science projects that conduct research on similar topics, such as vector-borne disease or pollution, in different areas of the world.  The consortia model allows projects to mobilize local communities while sharing good practices and data globally.

·         Support the collection of exchange of open and findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data by formalizing a citizen science data standard and building an open data portal.  

·         Understandandtrack the contributions of citizen science to supporting sustainable development, including through an index that connects citizen science to the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Citizen Science Global will be uniquely positioned to monitor and shape the growth of citizen science. This initiative will be hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars through 2020, at which point the steering committee and advisory boards will determine a permanent home. 

Global Mosquito Alert

Local Actions, Global Connections: Advancing Citizen Science with UN-Environment (UNEP)