Citizen science and open data to help society

Some time ago we talked about the power of citizen science to generate open data. As we explained then, citizen science initiatives seek to encourage citizens to contribute to various scientific activities and research through their efforts, knowledge, tools and resources. 

The participatory nature is one of their key features. Any citizen has the possibility to collaborate, either by gathering information or by offering their experience and knowledge to the cause. This participation, which must be altruistic, efficient and open (in accordance with the Green Paper on citizen science), aims to generate a more social science, which brings together the interest of professionals and citizens, and whose purpose is to offer a benefit to society. In this sense, the online platform eu-citizen.science  has been created by the European community to share knowledge, tools, training and citizen science resources on different areas of scientific research.

Many of these initiatives consume, collect and generate different types of data, which are sometimes made available to the public through download links, or through applications and maps that facilitate their visualisation.

Below are some examples of citizen science groups.

Initiatives to improve the well-being of society

Mercè  

The aim of Mercè, a citizen science experiment, is to define what a liveable city looks like through citizen participation and the use of artificial intelligence algorithms. 

The procedure is as follows: participants have to choose between two images and select where, according to their personal preferences, they would most like to live. In this way, a knowledge bank is generated that will allow the algorithms to understand what public elements citizens need, and to make decisions that improve the habitability of cities. The data used and being generated as a result of this experiment can be downloaded and consulted on the website.

Serena 

Given the increase in the number of elderly people at risk of loneliness, this project seeks to develop applications using new artificial intelligence technologies to improve the quality of life of the elderly. Citizens are participating in the development of a conversational robot called Serena, whose main objective is to combine artificial intelligence and citizen participation in order to analyse aspects such as loneliness, isolation or well-being, among others, related to the elderly and their careers in order to devise solutions that can reduce these situations. You can download the CSV data on the responses provided through the project's conversational bot at this link.

Initiatives to care for the environment

Flora urbana y alergia, ¿cooperas?  (Urban flora and allergy, do you cooperate?) 

This initiative aims to inform about the presence of allergenic plants in our environment and the level of allergy risk depending on their condition. Its main objective is to help to better understand the relationship between the environment and allergic diseases, and above all to contribute to improving the quality of life of allergy sufferers. 

Citizens can collaborate in the collection of data to develop a map on the phenological state (presence of closed flower, open flower and/or fruit) of the plants in the environment that cause allergy. Citizens provide the information in a short questionnaire accompanied by a photo of each plant. This information is made openly available to users through an app and an interactive map showing the different levels of allergen alerts. Historical data is available for download, but only in pdf format.

Red Cambera  

This is a non-profit organisation that seeks to contribute to the care and conservation of nature. One of its major initiatives is the Proyecto Ríos (Rivers Project) in Cantabria, which works on the restoration of amphibian breeding sites in the Saja-Besaya Natural Park and the monitoring of American mink in several river courses. 

To do this, they encourage citizen participation through groups that meet in rivers where they receive the necessary training to collect and send the data to the project, thus bringing science closer to the population. This data is used to make guides, reports or even maps. In this project RIOSCONCIENCIA you can view and download -if you are logged in- the data recorded from 2008-2018. 

Initiatives to improve the economy

El Taxi Experimenta (The Taxi Experiment)

This is a production workshop developed by Medialab that proposes to take advantage of the taxi's potential as a city infrastructure for experimentation and citizen innovation.   

One of its most outstanding projects is Comercio de barrio (Neighbourhood trade), where the taxi serves as a tool for local businesses by allowing them to promote their products and offers in the advertising space of the vehicles. The taxi user benefits by having access to information about offers from nearby shops. Another project is Reducción del consumo de combustible de los taxis de Madrid (Reduction of fuel consumption in Madrid taxis), which has two main objectives: to reduce fuel consumption and to increase the environmental commitment of taxi drivers in the Community of Madrid.

LabIN Granada 

The Citizen Innovation Lab of Granada focuses on the generation of ideas, solutions and development of projects for the city. LabIN Granada forms a network of citizen participation through a global and distributed platform so that they can discover all the ideas that other locals and visitors have already contributed. 

Among its projects are some related to the economic sphere from a sustainable point of view, such as Nuevos modelos de alojamiento turístico (New models of tourist accommodation), a proposal that seeks to contribute ideas to balance the socio-economic impact in favour of the residents of the city of Granada caused by the new models of tourist accommodation.

Following an open data philosophy, the LabIN platform makes its data on users' ideas and projects available to the general public under a CC by SA licence, allowing them to be reused and distributed.

These are just a few examples we have collected of how citizen science can help the development of society, both in economic, social and environmental aspects. 

Do you know of any other technological solutions that encourage citizen participation in these or other areas at the service of society? We would like to continue providing more information. Do not miss the opportunity to provide us with all the information in the comments or by sending an email to contacto@datos.gob.es.