Citizen science in Austria

Abstract

Citizen Science, the active involvement of lay people without any academic education in the project specific scientific process, has experienced a massive increase in academic fields and projects in the last years. This active involvement can be designed in many different ways, which is often project and context specific. The popularity of citizen science goes hand in hand with the discussion about open science, and in fact both concepts are deeply connected with each other in many ways. Whereas in open science lay people don’t have to be involved in a project necessarily, citizen science often uses open science methods and tools to make this active involvement possible. In this text, the authors will give a short introduction to citizen science, its connections to open science, and the developments of citizen science in Austria in the last years and in the future.