What are the data for? Citizen science and science governance in an age of digital innovation

摘要: Citizen science is booming. Citizens across the world are taking data and technologies into their own hands and organizing themselves in sectors such as healthcare, mobility, environmental monitoring, and energy conservation. This explosion of citizen science initiatives raises challenges and opportunities for science governance in an age of global digital innovation. Can citizen science expand opportunities for scientific data collection? Do we all benefit from digital participation? How should governments, scientific research communities, and industries engage with citizen scientists and their data? In this talk, I provide responses to these questions by drawing on past and present examples of initiatives to engage citizens in science, from Darwin to CurieuzeNeuzen and from Belgium to Japan. Building on Irwin’s seminal work on citizen science (1995), I argue that many of these citizen science initiatives are best understood as expressions of scientific citizenship rather than as forms of public participation in scientific research. Whereas the latter form employs citizens as “sensors” or information providers, the former engages citizens in the definition of problems, data collection, and analysis. I conclude that, both forms can strengthen the sometimes fraught relationship between science and society by accounting for more data openness and transparency, scientific literacy, and civic dialogue.