Public Participation in Scientific Research workshop

 

On the 4th and 5th August, Portland, OR, was the gathering place for 300 participants that came to the workshop on Public Participation in Scientific Research. The workshop was timed just before the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America, and therefore it was not surprising that the workshop focused on citizen science projects that are linked to ecology and natural environments monitoring. These projects are some of the longest running citizen science activities, that are now gaining recognition and attention.

The workshop was organised as a set of thematic talks interlaced with long poster sessions. This way, the workshop included over 180 presentations in a day and a half. That set the scene for a detailed discussion at the end of the second day, to explore what is the way forward to the field of PPSR/Citizen Science/Civic Science etc., with attention to sharing lessons, developing and supporting new activities, considering codes of ethics, etc.

I presented the last talk of the workshop, describing Extreme Citizen Science and arguing for the potential of public participation to go much deeper in terms of engagement. The presentation is provided below, together with an interview that was conducted with me shortly after it.

And the interview,