The last couple of years there is a rising trend involving citizens to support scientific research, , so called Citizen Science (CS). Counting birds, butterflies or analyzing space photographs taken by the most sophisticated space telescopes for example, are very popular projects involving the population in important scientific research. The rise of CS can also been seen in the amount of popularizing books that are published on the subject, explaining what CS is and motiving citizen in taken part in an CS project (Clarke, 2014; Cooper, 2016; Gijsel et al., 2019; Hoffman et al., 2020; Wynn, 2019)..

In a search to define citizen science experts concluded that it was better to describe it than to define it. This eventually resulted in 10 principals of CS (Ecsa, 2018). Those 10 principals compasses every form of scientific endeavor were citizen are involved. This was in line with they typology created by (Schäfer & Kieslinger, 2016) that build an integrated science typologies based on the typologies of (Bonney et al., 2009; Shirk et al., 2012; Wiggins & Crowston, 2011). Ranging from citizens passively providing access to their computer (volunteer computing) to citizens that independently conduct scientific projects (collegial) and action project. Table 1 summarizes and explains this typology.

Table 1 Types of Citizen Science as described by Schaefer & Kieslinger (2016)

Studying important websites supporting CS projects, we notice that projects led by citizens are rare; let alone a study completely conducted by none professional scientists culminating in a scientific paper. This was however what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by its UNESCO study in 1952 hoped for (Vayena & Tasioulas, 2015).

On the one hand, it is not surprising if we think about the obstacles that have to be surmounted to carry out a successful scientific project. We can expect that the high-quality standards to which scientific research is mostly subjected, would be hard to meet by citizens not supported by a professional institution. Some obstacles are the amount of knowledge on a particular subject, the skill to conduct scientific research ( writing papers, conducting experiments, processing data, peer-reviewing), managing the ethical issues, getting enough credibility, and getting the right finance,....

On the other hand, it could be seen as a failure in the implementation of the UDHR, and Vayena & Tasioulas (2015) proposed that initiatives should be taken to ensure compliance with relevant scientific and ethical standards.

This project aims at building a structure so that the relevant scientific and ethical standards could be met. There are already publications about frameworks helping professional scientists build and maintain CS projects (Shirk et al., 2012) and a guide for citizen science practitioners is available through the German website https://www.buergerschaffenwissen.de/en (Pettibone et al., 2016).

The main research questions that the study will have to answer are:

1. How many collegial studies of relative importance have been undertaken?
2. If any, what made them successful or not?
3. What criteria will Collegial Scientific studies have to meet in order to get a seat at the table?
4. Can the tutorial from the German website Buergerschaffenwissen.de be useful in a Collegial CS project?
5. What are the main obstacles amateur scientists are facing in publishing a scientific paper in a renowned journal?
6. What structures need to be set up or alter to empower citizens in science and contribute to science?

The positive effect could be tremendous. Firstly, the potential of millions of people being able to contribute to the scientific community. Secondly, by the fact that citizens are not bound to any association, they are free to conduct the scientific study as they pleased. Reviewing academic work without thinking about repercussions. Reviewing older research paths that have been abandoned. Etc.… Thirdly citizen forms a free review organism which could help the reproducibility issue that science is confronted with. Scientists are asked and evaluated on new research, giving them barely any time to reproduce research from colleagues. Some citizens could be interested in reproducing scientific research and their report could be very valuable. Others could dive into long abandoned research paths….

In 1952 a UNESCO paper saw the potential of amateur scientists and what they could mean for the evolution of science. 70 years later, almost nothing had been undertaken to empower citizens. This study will undertake a step in giving citizens a chance at being part of something as great as the scientific community.

Literature

Bonney, R., Cooper, C. B., Dickinson, J., Kelling, S., Phillips, T., Rosenberg, K. V., & Shirk, J. (2009). Citizen science: A developing tool for expanding science knowledge and scientific literacy. BioScience, 59(11), 977–984. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.9

Clarke, C. (2014). Be the Change. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.

Cohn, J. P. (2008). Citizen science: Can volunteers do real research? BioScience, 58(3), 192–197. https://doi.org/10.1641/B580303

Cooper, C. B. (2016). Citizen Science. ABRAMS.

Ecsa, S. (2018). Citzen Science. Citzen Science, April, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787352339

Gijsel, L., Huyse, T., & Van Hoyweghen, I. (2019). Citizen Science, Hoe burgers de wetenschap uitdagen. Pelckmans Pro.

Heigl, F., Kieslinger, B., Paul, K. T., Uhlik, J., & Dörler, D. (2019). Toward an international definition of citizen science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(17), 8089–8092. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1903393116

Hoffman, C., Cooper, C. B., & Cavalier, D. (2020). The Field Guide to Citizen Science. Timber Press.

Pettibone, L., Vohland, K., Bonn, A., Richter, A., Bauhus, W., Behrisch, B., Borcherding, R., Brandt, M., Bry, F., Dörler, D., Elbertse, I., Glöckler, F., Göbel, C., Hecker, S., Heigl, F., Herdick, M., Kiefer, S., Kluttig, T., Kühn, E., … Ziegler, D. (2016). Citizen science for all: A guide for citizen science practitioners.

Schäfer, T., & Kieslinger, B. (2016). Supporting emerging forms of citizen science: A plea for diversity, creativity and social innovation. Journal of Science Communication, 15(2). https://doi.org/10.22323/2.15020402

Shirk, J. L., Ballard, H. L., Wilderman, C. C., Phillips, T., Wiggins, A., Jordan, R., McCallie, E., Minarchek, M., Lewenstein, B. V., Krasny, M. E., & Bonney, R. (2012). Public participation in scientific research: A framework for deliberate design. Ecology and Society, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04705-170229

Vayena, E., & Tasioulas, J. (2015). “We the Scientists”: a Human Right to Citizen Science. Philosophy and Technology, 28(3), 479–485. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-015-0204-0

Wiggins, A., & Crowston, K. (2011). From Conservation to Crowdsourcing. A Typology of Citizen Science. . http://ecite.utas.edu.au/108657

Wynn, J. (2019). Citizen Science in the Digital Age. The University of Alabama Press.