Analyzing the Role of Citizen Science in Modern Research

As the need for sustainable development practices around the world continues to grow, it has become imperative for citizens to become actively engaged in the global transition. By evaluating data collected from various global programs, researchers are able to identify strategies and challenges in implementing civic engagement initiatives. Analyzing the Role of Citizen Science in Modern Research focuses on analyzing data on current initiatives and best practices in citizen engagement and education programs across various disciplines. Highlighting emergent research and application techniques within citizen science initiatives, this publication appeals to academicians, researchers, policy makers, government officials, technology developers, advanced-level students and program developers interested in launching or improving citizen science programs across the globe.

Luigi Ceccaroni is founder and research lead at 1000001 Labs [http://www.1000001labs.org], and a member of the Knowledge Engineering and Machine Learning group (KEMLg) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) (Spain) [http://upc.edu]. Luigi obtained a BSc degree in Environmental Sciences (first class honors) from the University of Bologna (Ravenna, Italy); an MSc degree in Information-Technology Languages and Systems from UPC; a PhD in Artificial Intelligence (first class honors), with a thesis entitled “OntoWEDSS - An Ontology-based Environmental Decision-Support System for the management of Wastewater treatment plants”, from UPC in December 2001; and completed an Executive MBA at EAE Business School in March 2016. His main research interests combine: hazards forecasting in various environments; citizen science; ontologies; recommendation systems; semantics; the semantic Web; personalization; and application of artificial intelligence to healthcare and environmental sciences. In 2012-2015, Luigi was the principal investigator and coordinator of the Citclops project, an FP7 5 M€ European project about a citizens' observatory for coast and ocean monitoring. In 2010-2014, he has worked as a senior member of research staff at Eurecat (BDigital) (Spain) [http://eurecat.org/en/], where he founded and coordinated the Personalized Computational Medicine research group and wrote the winning proposal for the Synergy-COPD project (2011-2014), an FP7 5 M€ European project about modeling and simulation for systems medicine, of which he was the principal investigator and coordinator. In 2011 he wrote the winning proposal for the BackHome project (2012-2015), an FP7 4 M€ European project about brain-neural computer interfaces. In 2003-2011, Luigi was a senior member of research staff of the Software Department (LSI) at UPC, where he developed an advanced technology demonstration network for education and cultural applications in Europe and Latin America; and led the activities in the Laboranova European IP project, which developed a collaboration environment for strategic innovation. In 2003-2010, he was director of research at TMT Factory (Barcelona, Spain). In TMT Factory, he developed interactive television for blind people; a service of personalized and accessible orientation for tourism; and combined coordination and organization mechanisms with model driven design to create new software-development tools and services. In 2005-2009, Luigi was adjunct professor of Artificial Intelligence at UPC. In 2001-2003, he has worked as a member of research staff at Fujitsu Laboratories of America, in their Silicon Valley labs. He took part in the evaluation of European research proposals submitted in response to the call FP7-ENV-2007-1 for Theme 6 "Environment (including climate change)", specifically on forecasting methods and assessment tools for sustainable development taking into account differing scales of observation. Luigi is the author of more than 70 publications peer-reviewed and managed a total of more than 14 M€ as lead researcher in the period 2007-2015. Since 2014, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Citizen Science Association. In 2014-2016 he was a member of the Board of Directors and the vice-president of Greenpeace Spain.

Jaume Piera is a Tenured Scientist of the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) and Scientific Collaborator at the Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre (CREAF). He is Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences (University of Girona), M.S. in Biology (University of Barcelona) and B.S. in Telecommunications Engineering (Technical University of Catalonia). His current research focuses on designing and evaluating scientific and technological infrastructures for environmental monitoring, particularly those based on citizen science approaches (known as Citizen Observatories). His research interests include designing and evaluating technologies to facilitate citizen participation and engagement in scientific research, promoting the use of local and traditional knowledge in conservation and education programs and developing new methods for analyzing citizen science data. As examples of his current research, he was leading the design if Do-It-Yourself instruments for water quality monitoring in the European project CITCLOPS (Citizens’ Observatory for Coast and Ocean Optical Monitoring), and now is collaborating in the design of new technologies for the MOSQUITO ALERT project and the environmental citizen science platform NATUSFERA. Since 2014, he is a member of the Steering Committee of the European Citizen Science Association, chairing the Working Group “Projects, Data, Tools and Technology”.