Citizen Science in an international spotlight
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At the end of April 2015 the iDiv working group of Prof. Aletta Bonn and the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) invited representatives of Europe, the United States and Australia to discuss these questions. The most important outcomes: First, citizen science nowadays is happening at all geographic scales, ranging from hyper scaling e.g. local sensors, regional scale the country scale to global scale. Second, citizen science can have an informal and formal policy impact; and this impact can be the question of the project per se or can happen unintendedly. Third, large scale policy is not and cannot be informed by local scale citizen science.
The participants came to the conclusion that “Citizen Science is risky science but also blue sky science”. They also discussed ideas for future international collaborations. The experiences made throughout the future journey of public participation will be hopefully presented at the European Citizen Science Conference, held in 2016.
