Science as collective action
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Science as collec Increasingly, members of the public are doing their bit towards scientific research by sending in observations or carrying out small-scale studies. Fun to do, but for policymakers this ‘citizen science’ is also a way of democratizing research and gearing it more to society’s problems. It is hard to get funding for it, though. TEXT ARNO VAN ’T HOOG PHOTO HH/MARCEL VAN DEN BERGH
CITIZEN SCIENCE ective action
‘We didn’t have the resources
to send out researchers’
I
n the past few years webshops and super- Jansen has been able to try out a citizen sci- come snuffling around three times in one
markets have started selling cheap camera ence project of this kind together with the night. Domestic cats are an exception be-
traps equipped with a movement sensor Mammal Association, in a project called cause you can tell them apart by their
so they automatically take a series of photos Hopping Cameras. In this project, cameras markings.’
when something walks in front of the lens. are moved from garden to garden for a year If you want to involve a broad segment of
These are simple variants of the instruments in cities including Amersfoort, Deventer the public, you have to make compromises,
with which Patrick Jansen of the Wagenin- and Nijmegen. A volunteer installs them 20 says Jansen. ‘Above all, the system needs to
gen Resource Ecology chair group does re- centimetres above the ground, half a metre be fool-proof. With professional research-
search, both in the tropics and in Europe, on away from a tin of sardines with holes in it, ers we would go for a different setup in a
populations of shy animals which are diffi- from which fish oil leaks. The idea is that project using camera traps.’ But some de-
cult to observe. most mammals – mice, rats, hedgehogs, gree of compromise on data quality is not
‘People buy one of those cameras for fun. martens or cats – find this smell interesting disastrous, says Jansen, because there is
They think it’s a nice gadget, but after a enough to be worth checking out. something to be said for quantity too.
while it ends up in the cupboard,’ says Researchers are expensive and they cannot
Jansen. Imagine if you could get those peo- STANDARDIZATION be everywhere at the same time, whereas
ple enthusiastic about setting up the camera The setup with the tin of sardines solves a you need a large number of observations to
in their gardens, or lending it to their neigh- scientific problem: standardization. ‘Some get a reliable picture of the distribution of
bour, and sending in the pictures they get. people have a high-tech camera trap with mammals. Besides, there are other good
‘Then you could get a better idea of how high resolution, and others have a toy. In reasons for doing a citizen science project.
mammals use the urban environment, rang- order to overcome that difference in sensi- ‘The Mammal Association wants to get
ing from big gardens on the edge of the city tivity, you need to lure the animals as close people enthusiastic and aware that their
to tiny green patches in the city centre. All to the lens as possible so that even the least garden can be a little habitat for wild ani-
the evidence suggests that many woodland sensitive camera picks them up,’ says mals. For our students too, it is very handy
animals are gradually shifting towards the Jansen. ‘The disadvantage of using bait is that they can get some experience with citi-
cities, but we don’t actually know exactly that we can’t then conclude anything about zen science.’
how that is progressing.’ numbers, because the same animal might If a lot of people take part, thousands of
TICK RADAR ALLERGY RADAR GROWAPP
Purpose Up-to-date information Purpose Overview of symptoms Purpose See for yourself how
about ticks and Lyme’s disease; being experienced by hay fever suf- nature reacts to a warmer climate.
offers a ten-day forecast on tick ferers. The Pollen Planner provides Makes it possible to compare
activity levels. info on the expected pollen count. photos from different seasons.
Name Arnold van Vliet Name Arnold van Vliet Name Arnold van Vliet
Year Since 2012 Year Since 2009 Year Since 2017
28 WAGENINGENWORLD
CITIZEN SCIENCE
images come in. Jansen also wants to ena-
ble the public to help with identifying the
animals in the photos through Agouti, a
platform he built himself. This works in a
similar way to the successful website
Zoonoverse. There, thousands of volunteers
receive a short training course and then
help classify millions of photos from hun-
dreds of camera traps on the Serengeti WILDCAMERA
plains in Tanzania, for instance, or in the Purpose Doing research with
rain forest in Peru. To avoid mistakes, sev- camera traps to monitor how wild
eral people classify the same photo. mammals use gardens.
Jansen hopes to launch his camera trap Name Patrick Jansen
project before the summer. The only thing Year Since 2016
lacking is funding for the software develop-
ment and supervision once the project has
started. A lot of automatization will be
needed for gathering and storing the re- European policymakers. They see this ap- grants specifically for citizen science
search data: where and when was the photo proach as offering ways of drawing the wid- projects.
taken, and what does the garden look like? er community into the pursuit of science,
‘Our photo processing system was made spreading knowledge and making science MINIMAL RESOURCES
for researchers and I don’t think it is user- more open and democratic. In this respect, The new appreciation and professionaliza-
friendly enough yet. Nor do we have a good citizen science is very relevant to the recent tion of citizen science would seem beneficial
helpdesk yet for questions and problems. debate about open access to data and publi- to researchers who have been working in
Involving the public like this will only suc- cations, and the influence of society on the this field for years now with minimal re-
ceed if everything works properly from the scientific agenda. sources, as funding is still very hard to find,
start.’ In 2014, the European Commission pub- as Arnold van Vliet knows from experience.
lished its White Paper on Citizen Science. The 'You have to be constantly asking yourself
INCREASINGLY EFFICIENT paper waxes lyrical about the opportunities what your business models are,' says the
Citizen science has the image of being cas- and possibilities: ‘In citizen science, a broad Wageningen citizen science specialist.
ual and amateurish. Primarily, something network of people collaborate. Participants In 2001, Van Vliet started up Natuur
you do for fun. But mobile technology and provide experimental data and facilities for kalendar.nl: a phenological observation pro-
the internet are making communication be- researchers, raise new questions and co- gramme which registers recurring natural
tween the general public and scientists in- create a new scientific culture.’ Seen like phenomena such as flowering, leaf fall, bird
creasingly efficient and international. this, citizen science goes far beyond public migration and the return of insects.
Anyone can submit online observations or assistance for the researcher. The document Van Vliet knows how to make good use of
data, carry out research tasks or make their recommends targeted financing of citizen this general knowledge. One example is the
computers available for calculations. There science projects, and proposes making this website tekenradar.nl which he started to-
are now too many projects, both large and form of science a fixed component of large gether with the National Institute for Public
small, to have an overview. They range from EU research projects, such as the 80-billion- Health and Environment RIVM. Tick bites
garden bird counts through air quality euro Horizon 2020 programme for innova- can be reported on this site, which provides
measurements and calculations of protein tive projects. There are signs of growing researchers with information about the risk
structures, to classifying galaxies or molec- enthusiasm for the concept elsewhere too. of Lyme’s disease, as well as making it pos-
ular structures of cells. The United States has already taken it one sible to warn people when ticks become ac-
For a few years now, citizen science has also step further: the National Science tive again. Van Vliet’s ambitions go beyond
been attracting serious attention from Foundation has recently started awarding involving the public as data providers. >
WAGENINGENWORLD 29‘You know that you’ll get some
unusable observations’
For him, citizen science is a combination of does not focus exclusively on publications. Without attention you don’t get participants,
observation, analysis and the translation Moreover, the monitoring of flowering as Bastiaan Meerburg can tell you. He is
into applications, plus all the communica- times, allergy symptoms, tick bites and mos- head of the Livestock & Environment depart-
tion that entails. ‘Why get worked up about quito bites is geared to the long term. ‘That ment and an expert in rodent pests at
a plant that is flowering a month earlier be- is very tricky for project financiers. So I am Wageningen University & Research. In the
cause of climate change? Well, what about constantly wondering how we can generate summer of 2012, Meerburg created a bit of
hay fever, for instance? If birches and grass- a reliable income. How do we maintain the media hype around a project which asked
es flower earlier, 10 to 15 percent of the hu- networks which collect data? Because it people to send in rat droppings. The aim
man population are affected.’ doesn’t all come free.’ was to use DNA analysis to get the measure
The accumulated knowledge about weather of resistance to rat poison.
conditions and flowering times and the re- COMMON ASSUMPTION ‘We wanted observations from all over the
ports of all sorts of allergy symptoms were That is a common assumption about citizen country, but we didn’t have the resources to
used to build the ‘pollen planner’, which, science, says Van Vliet: it’s nice and cheap. send researchers out to collect droppings.
with visuals like those used on weather fore- ‘That is absolutely not the case. The techni- That makes this an interesting alternative,
casting websites, warns hay fever patients cal development of apps and websites, the and we certainly got a good picture. Some of
weeks ahead that they can expect symptoms. hours of analysis and interaction with the the droppings were not usable because they
‘Actually, we’d like to go a step further by in- public cost money. Building up a community had crumbled, and some were mouse or
forming the relevant people – patients, doc- is time-consuming. You need to reach peo- hedgehog droppings. You get that with citi-
tors and pharmacists – so that sufferers can ple and motivate them. Will you join in? Will zen science: you know that you’ll get some
start taking medicines before symptoms ap- you stay on board? One of the ways we do it unusable observations.’
pear,’ says Van Vliet. is through the stories we tell on Nature The results of the DNA analysis were re-
For Van Vliet, citizen science means making Today, showing how data provided by the markable, says Meerburg. ‘One quarter of
the best of the time and money available, be- public are used. That goes on 365 days a the rats in the Netherlands were resistant to
cause science funding bodies are dubious year, literally.’ well-known types of poison. That is quite a
about this unconventional approach, which The media play a key role in citizen science. lot.’ This knowledge has contributed to
PHOTO JEROEN JUMELET
SPLASH COUNTER RAT DROPPINGS EVOCA
Purpose Counting the number of Purpose Sending in droppings to Purpose Sharing information about
insects splattered on number plates find out where brown rats are resist- diseases and pests in order to solve
to get an idea of changes in insect ant to rat poison problems in Africa.
density. Name Bastiaan Meerburg Name Cees Leeuwis
Name Arnold van Vliet Year 2012/2013 Year Since 2016
Year 2011
30 WAGENINGENWORLDCITIZEN SCIENCE
more targeted pest control methods, with
pest controllers first checking which poison
is effective.
An important lesson, says Meerburg, is that
sharing results is good for the participation
levels. ‘It gives people the feeling that some-
thing really is done with what they send in.
We asked participants to give their postcode;
then they could look at the results on the
website within a few days. Commitment in-
creased tremendously, and neighbours start-
ed getting each other interested. Asking
each other: what’s living in your garden?’
The researchers chose a strategic moment: MOSQUITO RADAR
around the time of the Olympic Games, in a
Purpose National monitoring
period when there wasn’t much other news. specific ways of using it, or apps. You
network for nuisance caused by
Meerburg: ‘Because of that the subject really shouldn’t dream up solutions before the
mosquitoes. Offers a five-day
caught on. I was interviewed for endless ra- problem is totally clear at the local level.
forecast of mosquito activity, in col-
dio shows and newspapers. That was good That is what the PhD candidates are re-
laboration with weather forecast site
for the research and led to us getting a lot of searching in the field at the moment.’
Buienradar.
material sent in. Somebody even sent in a ICT and telecommunications offer new
Name Arnold van Vliet
dead rat; they are still talking about that in scope for connecting people, says Leeuwis.
Year Since 2016
the post room.’ In countries such as Tanzania, Kenya and
In 2017 muggenradar.nl joined the
Ethiopia, most people have access to a mo-
international Global Mosquito Alert
FIGHTING MALARIA bile phone by now. ‘That makes it possible
The digital revolution and the availability of to collect data in a decentralized fashion,
telephones could mean citizen science could and to link it to scientific models. Farmers
be used to address serious problems related might send in observations on their mobile mote collective action. So we are not inter-
to diseases and food security in Africa. phones, giving you a picture of the incidence ested in citizen science as a matter of
Finding out whether that can work in prac- of diseases and plagues in an area. In turn, collecting data and giving individual advice;
tice is one of the aims of the EVOCA project that provides information about how farm- we want to see if it can help a community
run by Cees Leeuwis, professor of ers could respond to the situation.’ It is not deal with diseases more effectively.’
Knowledge, Technology and Innovation at for nothing that the terms observation and Citizen science originally grew out of the
Wageningen University & Research. In the action feature in the acronym EVOCA: idea that citizens could help scientists col-
next few years, 12 PhD candidates will be Environmental Virtual Observatories for lect data, says Leeuwis. ‘Subsequently, pro-
studying whether mobile information sys- Connective Action. jects have grown up in which the citizen
tems can be built using elements from citi- becomes a bit of a scientist, with the focus
zen science for purposes such as setting up IN TOUCH still on the science. We take it a step further,
regional collaboration among farmers. For Leeuwis, citizen science is primarily a by focussing on an actual problem. What we
Leeuwis: ‘For us, citizen science is not an means of mobilizing people and stimulating do is very action-oriented. Science plays a
end in itself. The main priority is the prob- collective decision-making. ‘Diseases and role, but the pursuit of science is no longer
lems, such as diseases and pests in potato pests are collective problems. A farmer can- the main objective. That is a bit different to
farming, water shortages, or fighting malar- not fight potato blight alone; you need a the idea with which citizen science was
ia. Maybe we could use some citizen science- community of farmers for that. It is precisely started.’ W
like elements in addressing these problems new communication technology that can put
but we are nowhere near ready to develop people in touch with each other and pro- www.wur.eu/citizenscience
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