Citizen science in European research infrastructures

Abstract

Major European Union-funded research infrastructure and open science projects have traditionally included dissemination work, for mostly one-way communication of the research activities. Here, we present and review our radical re-envisioning of this work, by directly engaging citizen science volunteers into the research. We summarise the citizen science in the Horizon-funded projects ASTERICS (Astronomy ESFRI and Research Infrastructure Clusters) and ESCAPE (European Science Cluster of Astronomy and Particle Physics ESFRI Research Infrastructures), engaging hundreds of thousands of volunteers in providing millions of data mining classifications. Not only does this have enormously more scientific and societal impact than conventional dissemination, but it facilitates the direct research involvement of what is often arguably the most neglected stakeholder group in Horizon projects, the science-inclined public. We conclude with recommendations and opportunities for deploying crowdsourced data mining in the physical sciences, noting that the primary goal is always the fundamental research question; if public engagement is the primary goal to optimise, then other, more targeted approaches may be more effective.