BACKGROUND

Citizen science brings scientists and the wider community together to work on important scientific projects. It has played a central and celebrated role in the advancement of global knowledge.

From amateur astronomers tracking the transit of Venus in 1874 to the Audubon Society’s 114 year-old Christmas Bird Count, people with a passion for science have worked alongside scientists for the benefit of the community. Today, more than 130,000 Australians are active in over 90 citizen science projects, predominantly in environmental science fields.

Many kinds of organisations are also involved, including universities, all levels of government, schools, industry groups, community groups and museums

Carla Sbrocchi

Chris Gillies

Gretta Pecl

Philip Roetman

English

Analysis and Policy Observatory (APO)

AUSTRALIA’S 
CHIEF SCIENTIST
BACKGROUND
Citizen science brings scientists and the wider 
community together to work on important 
scientific projects. It has played a central and 
celebrated role in the advancement of global 
knowledge.
From amateur astronomers tracking the transit 
of Venus in 1874 to the Audubon Society’s 
114 year-old Christmas Bird Count, people 
with a passion for science have worked alongside 
scientists for the benefit of the community. Today, 
more than 130,000 Australians are active in 
over 90 citizen science projects1, predominantly 
in environmental science fields. Many kinds 
of organisations are also involved, including 
universities, all levels of government, schools, 
industry groups, community groups and museums. 
These diverse projects produce a large 
number of observational records that would be 
unachievable by a single scientist. Since 1998, 
10,000 registered bird observers have produced 
10 million records towards the Atlas of Australian 
Birds database.2 More recently, the National 
Science Week program ‘Explore the Seafloor’ 
successfully analysed 330,526 photos of marine 
habitat within a one-week period through the 
efforts of 9628 citizen scientists.3 
Australian citizen scientists have discovered 
new species (Figure 1), played a role in break-
throughs on debilitating diseases4, identified and 
classified distant galaxies5, and contributed to 
new ecological theories.6
Figure 1: Peacock spider, Maratus harrisi, discovered by citizen 
scientist Stuart Harris. Jurgen Otto, CC BY-NC-ND. 
OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES  
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SCIENTIST  |  OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES 1
OFFICE OF THE 
|
Partnerships between scientists and the community are strengthening Australia’s research 
capacity, solving real world problems and enhancing our awareness of science.
BUILDING AUSTRALIA THROUGH 
CITIZEN SCIENCE 
Gretta Pecl, Chris Gillies, Carla Sbrocchi and Philip Roetman*
ISSUE 11
July 2015
HOW DOES CITIZEN SCIENCE 
WORK? 
Different projects call for different relationships 
between professional scientists and community 
members.  Recognised forms of partnership 
include:7,8
• Contributory - citizens collect or process data 
for scientists
• Collaborative - citizens engage in work beyond 
data collection or processing, such as project 
design, analysis or communication 
• Co-created - citizens and scientists work 
together in all aspects of the scientific process
Like any scientific endeavour, the appropriateness 
of citizen involvement and best form for 
that involvement to take have to be carefully 
evaluated.9,10 Projects that require complex 
observation or data collection techniques will often 
call for skills that only years of professional training 
and experience provide. However, many projects 
are well suited to participation by members of 
the community, who can follow the principles of 
scientific inquiry11 to make valuable contributions. 
Projects with high citizen participation can harness 
the large number of contributors to extend the 
spatial or temporal scale of data collection (Figures 
2 and 3). These projects typically involve a lower 
level of training for citizen scientists and simple 
methods of scientific data collection. 
More complex projects require scientists to provide 
more training or support for citizen scientists. They 
typically involve fewer participants6 or operate on a 
smaller scale (Figure 4) to ensure that high-quality 
evidence is obtained.
ADVANTAGES OF CITIZEN 
SCIENCE
Citizen science has emerged over the past several 
decades as a powerful tool where one project can 
achieve multiple objectives. Tangible benefits of 
citizen science include: 
For the research community: increased scale of 
data collection, new or greater access to resources, 
access to private lands and information.  
For citizen scientists: education (either formal 
or informal) leading to new knowledge and 
skills, empowerment, friendships and more active 
lifestyles.
For society: new information for government 
decision-making, greater interest in science and 
understanding of scientific principles, greater 
Figure 2: The Atlas of Life in the Coastal Wilderness 
is a regionally-based, community-led project that has 
contributed over 11,000 species sightings to the Atlas 
of Living Australia in less than four years. It is a rich 
contribution to a large, long-term and critical data resource 
for the nation. Atlas of Life in the Coastal Wilderness, 2014. 
Figure 3: Over 500 people searched for koalas on one day 
in South Australia, recording 1500 sightings as part of 
The Great Koala Count. Researchers developed a model 
of koala distributions from the spatial data collected.12 
The project was run as a collaboration between the 
University of South Australia, ABC Local Radio, the 
South Australian Government, CSIRO and the local 
community. Philip Roetman, 2011.
Figure 4: Earthwatch is an internationally successful 
model where citizen scientists join professional scientists to 
investigate environmental issues. In Australia, Earthwatch 
expeditions have contributed to over 300 peer-reviewed 
scientific papers. Earthwatch, 2013.
2 BUILDING AUSTRALIA THROUGH CITIZEN SCIENCE  |  Gretta Pecl, Chris Gillies, Carla Sbrocchi and Philip Roetman
environmental stewardship and more engaging 
teaching methods for science and mathematics 
subjects, whilst helping scientists to understand 
people’s concerns and aspirations.
As a distributed network of ‘first responders’, citizen 
scientists can monitor and notify authorities on 
issues such as pest and disease outbreaks, pollution 
breaches or the discovery of new species.
At the local scale, citizen science can support 
council and regional natural resource management 
biodiversity strategies, local forest initiatives or 
assist in the delivery of wildlife management plans. 
Citizen science also incorporates local knowledge 
and historical accounts, and can embed these in 
monitoring and assessment programs (Figure 5). 
HARNESSING THE POWER OF 
COMMUNITIES
New technologies are enabling people in the 
community to collect data with more accuracy 
and precision than ever before. Smartphones can 
equip untrained citizens with the capacity for a 
high degree of accuracy in observations, allowing 
automated data collection and creating rigour 
through the potential of post-processing. For 
example, automatic recording of GPS location 
can reduce transcription errors, and photographic 
records can be verified by experts (Figure 6). 
Moreover, advances in instrumentation such as 
devices that monitor and record temperature and 
acidity make it possible for non-experts to take 
reliable and precise measurements of an increasing 
number of parameters (Figure 7).
OVERCOMING BARRIERS, 
BUILDING OPPORTUNITIES
A 2014 survey of 122 citizen science project leaders 
found that positive outcomes of projects included 
research outputs (papers, reports, presentations, 
theses or books), educational outcomes, 
contributions to policy and other impacts including 
behavioral change or increased awareness of issues 
(Figure 8).1 
One barrier to maximising the potential of citizen 
science may be the perception within the scientific 
community. The survey found that ‘perception of 
unreliable data’ was ranked as the second major 
barrier to successfully conducting citizen science 
projects (after ‘availability of funding’). Interestingly, 
the scientists actually involved in these projects 
ranked the reliability of data as much less of a 
barrier. 
Figure 5: The Australian Bureau of Meteorology is 
working with the UK’s Met Office to collect weather 
information and observations from citizen scientists. The 
project provides a high-density meteorological dataset 
(temperature shown on the above map) in a cost-effective 
and well-structured system. Bureau of Meteorology, 2015.
Figure 6: Participants in Range Extension Database 
and Mapping project (or ‘Redmap’) record and share 
observations of marine species that are unusual to a given 
area via a website or smartphone app.  The data helps 
scientists to map changes in the distribution of marine 
species against changes in the marine environment. All 
photographic observations are verified by a member of 
Redmap’s network of 80 scientists. Jonah Yick, 2015.
Figure 7: Citizen scientists in the DustWatch program 
monitor dust activity using instruments such as deposition 
traps and high volume air samplers. OEH/Simone Cottrell
3OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SCIENTIST  |  OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES 
About this series
These occasional papers from the Office of the Chief  
Scientist aim to bring to the public’s attention scientific 
issues of importance to Australian society.  Each issue 
has been prepared by a multi-disciplinary team and has 
been through an external review process. We would like 
to thank Dr Rick Bonney, Dr Caren Cooper and Dr John 
LaSalle for reviewing this paper.
Series ISSN: 2201-0025 (print) and 2201-0033 (online)
This issue was edited by Jennifer Bowles, Will Howard, 
and Katherine Leigh.  
For more information about the series, this issue’s topic 
or to subscribe to future papers, contact the series editor, 
Katherine Leigh, Office of the Chief Scientist, GPO Box 
9839, Canberra ACT 2601, projects@chiefscientist.gov.au.
* Gretta Pecl is from the Institute for Marine and 
Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, Chris 
Gillies is from The Nature Conservancy, Carla Sbrocchi 
is from University of Technology Sydney and Philip 
Roetman is from University of South Australia.
49%
48%
26%
17%
Research outputs
Educational outcomes
Other impacts on the
community
Contributions to policy
Benefits of citizen science projects  
As the field of citizen science matures this 
perception appears to be shifting, possibly 
facilitated by the growing body of literature 
demonstrating that (where citizen science was an 
appropriate methodology) data collected by citizens 
are comparable to those of professional 
scientists.13,14 Moreover, many processes and 
statistical methods have been developed to 
recognise and evaluate the types of data collected 
through citizen science.10,15 
The success of citizen science projects is also reliant 
on the level of understanding and awareness of 
science in the community. Building scientific 
literacy can help to boost participation in science 
projects – and opening these projects more widely 
can improve scientific literacy in turn.
Shifting the perceptions within the research and 
Australian communities calls for new thinking and 
partnerships, focused on:
Training and the development of standards - so 
that individuals and organisations have greater 
capacity to deliver best practice citizen science, and 
provide scientists and participants with guidance 
on appropriate question selection, project design, 
methods of volunteer recruitment and engagement, 
techniques for data capture and analysis, safe 
practice in the field, communication with 
community leaders, and project evaluation. 
Improving communication amongst citizen 
science projects, host organisations, practitioners 
and volunteers - to limit unnecessary duplication 
of projects and harness resources more efficiently, 
particularly within similar organisations (such as 
park agencies, environmental protection authorities, 
regional national resource management bodies and 
local councils). 
Similarly, a national register of projects (such 
as http://www.scistarter.com) would provide 
a connecting service to prospective volunteers 
to discover nearby projects, match scientists to 
communities, identify data ‘black spots’ and provide 
support and training.  
Developing forums for connecting scientists, 
educators, government, private industry and 
the community - to create new projects which 
address issues of local, state, national and/or global 
importance. 
One promising development is the recent 
establishment of the Australian Citizen Science 
Association (http://www.citizenscience.org.au), 
a national community of practice for all types of 
citizen science within Australia. Bodies have already 
been established in the US 
(www.citizenscienceassociation.org) and in Europe 
(http://ecsa.biodiv.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de) 
and are playing a leading role in coordinating the 
growth of citizen science internationally.
CONCLUSION
Citizen science can be a powerful demonstration of 
what can be achieved when different stakeholders 
work together to address critical issues.16 Providing 
opportunities for stakeholders to discover together 
where information gaps exist, and better understand 
the expertise, experiences and values of each group, 
would help to focus citizen science projects to 
where they are most needed and valued.
References are available at chiefscientist.gov.au
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Jess Cappadonna 
for compiling the citizen science project list, 
Elsa Gärtner for extracting the bibliographic 
metrics and everyone who completed the ‘Citizen 
Science in Australia’ survey.
Figure 8: Positive outcomes of citizen science projects1
4 BUILDING AUSTRALIA THROUGH CITIZEN SCIENCE  |  Gretta Pecl, Chris Gillies, Carla Sbrocchi and Philip Roetman


Building Australia through citizen science

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Building Australia through citizen science

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