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Strategic Objective

Build the capacity of the Nation to address societal challenges using a suite of formal, informal, and broadly available STEM educational mechanisms.

Strategic Objective

Build the capacity of the Nation to address societal challenges using a suite of formal, informal, and broadly available STEM educational mechanisms.

Lead Office: Office of the Director

Themes:

Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services General Science, Space, and Technology

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Overview
Progress Update
Related Goals

Overview

Progress Update

The Strategic Review examined the role that Public Participation in STEM Research (PPSR) can play in advancing science and engineering and increasing the participation of the U.S. population in science and engineering broadly. PPSR is an overarching category for projects that involve partnerships between professional scientists and amateurs and always involves the public’s participation in at least some aspects of genuine STEM research. Activities known as “citizen science” and “crowdsourcing science” are both included. The field of PPSR has evolved rapidly from a focus simply on data collection toward a more collaborative enterprise, where participants are increasingly involved in more aspects of the research process.

1. How is ‘Public Participation in STEM Research’ (PPSR) defined?

2. How can NSF’s investments in PPSR be characterized?

3. What cutting-edge investments might NSF make to advance PPSR?

Citizen science has taken place for centuries in a variety of fields (e.g., Christmas Bird Count, lighthouse weather data, and astronomical observations) but has grown significantly in the past decade, in part due to new technological tools. Similarly, crowdsourcing science refers to processes in which open calls are made for voluntary contributions to STEM problem-solving. These calls are typically either to a non-specified group of individuals ("the crowd") or to individuals with specific expertise, thus leveraging the skills and knowledge of many (e.g., Foldit¹, EyeWire²).

The motivation for PPSR, whether citizen science or crowdsourcing science, may be derived from community concerns or may be scientist-led. We have chosen to follow the field in calling these activities PPSR in order to clarify that the focus is on participation in STEM, and should not be confused with an activity that focuses on any individual’s (or group’s) nationality. In addition, we are using “STEM” in lieu of “Scientific” (i.e., “Public Participation in STEM Research”) to ensure recognition of this approach in all areas of science and engineering supported by NSF.

PPSR projects have both scientific and educational value. Without public participants and their contributions, some research would not be practical or even possible (e.g., projects requiring data collection from many geographical locations or over long periods of time, or projects requiring analysis of large sets of visual or numeric data). Moreover, PPSR provides opportunities for people of all genders, races, ethnicities, ages, and geographic locations to learn how STEM research is conducted and to engage in it directly. The level of public involvement varies from being contributory (e.g., collecting and recording data) to collaborative (e.g., analyzing samples and discussing results) to co-created (i.e., in which the public might be involved in all phases of the scientific process from defining the question for investigation, to experimenting, analyzing, and reporting results).

An analysis of NSF awards active in October 2014, identified 187 projects that included elements of PPSR. Approximately 50 new awards have been funded each year from FY 2012 to FY 2014. Thematically, investments in all disciplines aimed to increase data quality. Development of mobile technologies for sensing and data collection was an interest primarily centered in awards from ENG, CISE, BIO, EHR, and GEO. Not surprisingly, collecting data over large geographic and/or temporal scales was a theme in BIO and GEO awards, whereas understanding how PPSR engages people surfaced as a theme in SBE and EHR awards. A minority of awards contained aspects related to security and privacy (particularly in CISE) or enhancing and measuring learning (particularly in EHR).

Through its awards, NSF has played a seminal role in supporting the expanding field of PPSR in terms of science, technology, and learning. For example, building on NSF investments, the growing community of practice has formed a Citizen Science Association and a new Citizen Science: Theory and Practice journal. To continue to advance PPSR, NSF should consider investments in the following:

• Support the Growing PPSR Community of Practice. The field of PPSR has evolved rapidly from a focus simply on data collection toward a more collaborative enterprise, where participants are increasingly involved in more aspects of the research process. NSF should invest in efforts to support this community in terms of recruitment, networking, training, data reporting, authorship, and assessment.

• Advance the Technologies and Tools of PPSR. To continue to promote greater levels of public involvement in PPSR, the development of more user-friendly, robust, and affordable sensors for STEM research should be promoted. As more public participants become collaborators in scientific research, many issues related to networking, data management and access, data quality, and crowd-sourced analytics, as well as their scale-up, will need to be addressed.

• Investigate the Contributions of PPSR to Learning. NSF broke ground by funding projects that recognized learning as a key outcome of PPSR projects. The learning aspect of PPSR needs additional study to understand the demographics and motivations of participants, the extent and nature of STEM learning and engagement, and the most effective strategies for broadening participation in STEM through PPSR experiences.

• Assess the Potential of PPSR to Enable New Fields of Discovery Research. With the opportunity to reach more people and therefore collect and analyze data sets more extensively than possible through the efforts of scientists alone, PPSR may go beyond simply enhancing our ability to do traditional STEM better. PPSR enables us to pursue entirely new avenues of research that can only be achieved through public-scientist collaborations. The different cultural perspectives and habits of mind that public participants can bring to bear on the interpretation of data may also open new avenues of research. This potential is worth exploring.

Opportunities for Action or Improvement
NSF should take the next steps to promote theoretical and empirical research leading toward a ‘Science of PPSR.’ Analogous to developments in learning in the past, PPSR is moving from a type of activity to be supported to a way of doing research and learning that needs to be understood. The steps in this direction, in priority order, are to:
• Support a workshop on PPSR learning & broadening participation
• Encourage, through existing programs, advances in sensors and communication/data management infrastructure for PPSR.

In their cross-cutting assessment of the Strategic Review results, the PIO and COO determined that activities initiated in response to these recommendations should be tracked as an Agency Priority Goal.

¹https://fold.it/portal/
²http://blog.eyewire.org/about/

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Strategic Goals

Strategic Goal:

Stimulate Innovation and Address Societal Needs through Research and Education

Statement:

Stimulate Innovation and Address Societal Needs through Research and Education

Strategic Objectives

Strengthen the links between fundamental research and societal needs through investments and partnerships

Statement:

Strengthen the links between fundamental research and societal needs through investments and partnerships

Description:

The first part of NSF’s mission, as expanded by the first strategic goal, is to create new knowledge and expand the Nation’s intellectual capital. However, NSF's mission does not end there. We also must connect new knowledge to innovations that address societal needs above and beyond the need for advancement in science. This strategic objective is aimed at developing connections between new insights and global challenges (often involving essential interdisciplinary collaborations, prototypes, and technologies). It also entails educating a workforce capable of using and adapting discoveries to meet society’s needs.

One approach to developing these connections is through partnerships involving other government agencies and private and international entities. Such partnerships leverage NSF resources and help ensure that fundamental research outcomes are translated into benefits to society.

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FY 14-15 Priority Goal: Increase the Nation’s Data Science Capacity

Statement:

Improve the Nation’s capacity in data science by investing in the development of human capital and infrastructure.

By September 30^th, 2015, implement mechanisms to support the training and workforce development of future data scientists; increase the number of multi-stakeholder partnerships to address the nation’s big-data challenges; and increase investments in current and future data infrastructure extending data –intensive science into more research communities.

Description:

Innovative information technologies are transforming the fabric of society, and data represent a transformative new currency for science, education, government, and commerce. Data are everywhere; they are produced in rapidly increasing volume and variety by virtually all scientific, educational, governmental, societal and commercial enterprises. (For more information see “Dealing with Data,” Science Magazine, Volume 331, February 11, 2011.)

Today we live in an era of data and information. This era is enabled by modern experimental methods and observational studies; large-scale simulations; scientific instruments, such as telescopes and particle accelerators; Internet transactions, email, videos, images, and click streams; and the widespread deployment of sensors everywhere – in the environment, in our critical infrastructure, such as in bridges and smart grids, in our homes, and even on our clothing. Every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated – so much that 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone (http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/bigdata/).

It is important to note that when we talk about big data it is not just the enormous volume of data that needs to be emphasized, but also the heterogeneity, velocity, and complexity that collectively create the science and engineering challenges we face today.

In December 2010, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) published a report to the President and Congress entitled: Designing a Digital Future: Federally Funded Research and Development in Networking and Information Technology. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-nitrd-report-2010.pdf) In that report, PCAST pointed to the research challenges involved in large-scale data management and analysis and the critical role of Networking and Information Technology (NIT) in moving from data to knowledge to action, underpinning the Nation’s future prosperity, health and security.

Through long-term, sustained investments in foundational computing, communications and computational research, and the development and deployment of large-scale facilities and cyberinfrastructure, federal agency R&D investments over the past several decades have both helped generate this explosion of data as well as advance our ability to capture, store, analyze, and use these data for societal benefit. More specifically, we have seen fundamental advances in machine learning, knowledge representation, natural language processing, information retrieval and integration, network analytics, computer vision, and data visualization, which together have enabled Big Data applications and systems that have the potential to transform all aspects of our lives.

These investments are already starting to pay off, demonstrating the power of Big Data approaches across science, engineering, medicine, commerce, education, and national security, and laying the foundations for U.S. competitiveness for many decades to come. But much more needs to be done, particularly in four areas: 1) basic research; 2) data infrastructure; 3) education and workforce development; and 4) community outreach.

NSF can catalyze progress in these areas by developing programs to engage the research community, and by creating mechanisms to catalyze the development of people and infrastructure to address the challenges posed by this new flood of data.

NSF will help increase the number of data scientists engaged in academic research, development, and implementation. As defined in the 2005 NSB publication of Long-lived Digital Data Collections: Enabling Research and Education in the 21^st Century defines data scientists as “the information and computer scientists, database and software programmers, disciplinary experts, curators, and expert annotators, librarians, archivists and others, who are crucial to the successful management of a digital data collection.”

Using its ability to convene diverse sets of stakeholders, NSF will promote multi-stakeholder partnerships by supporting workshops and follow-on activities that bring together representatives of industry, academia, not-for-profit organizations, and other entities to address current and future big-data challenges. NSF will also leverage existing programs, such as the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) and the Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) programs, and create new programs and tracks to current programs, as needed, to support the creation of more researchers and students competent in the deep analytical and technical skills required to address those challenges.

NSF will develop strategies to build and sustain data infrastructure for the 21^st century through CIF21.

NSF will coordinate with other agencies through the National Science and Technology Council to achieve this goal.

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Build the capacity of the Nation to address societal challenges using a suite of formal, informal, and broadly available STEM educational mechanisms.

Statement:

Build the capacity of the Nation to address societal challenges using a suite of formal, informal, and broadly available STEM educational mechanisms.

Description:

Learn More

FY 16-17 Priority Goal: Invest strategically in public participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research (PPSR)

Statement:

Build the capacity of the Nation to solve research challenges and improve learning by investing strategically in crowdsourcing and other forms of public participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research (PPSR).

By September 30, 2017, NSF will implement mechanisms to expand and deepen the engagement of the public in research.

Description:

Problem/Opportunity:

Scientists, mathematicians, and engineers have involved the public in their research efforts to solve challenging problems for centuries in a variety of fields. For example, daily precipitation data collected by volunteers throughout the US have been used to develop more accurate, fine-grained models that improve weather forecasting, agriculture, and disaster risk analyses. Water quality and wildlife monitoring projects allow communities to understand their local environments in systematic ways and allow them to compare their findings with those from other areas. These types of activities have been referred to in a variety of ways. For this Agency Priority Goal, "Public Participation in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Research" (PPSR) is used as an overarching term that includes citizen science, crowdsourcing research, and similar activities.

PPSR has grown significantly in the past decade, in part due to new technological tools that facilitate interactions between scientists and participants. There are a number of economic, societal, and technological trends that are increasing the variety and value of what public participation in research can accomplish. These trends include: the democratization of the tools needed to design and make a variety of items; the Maker Movement; the emergence of online communities with shared interests in projects such as exploration of diverse fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by members of the public; and crowdfunding platforms that allow teams to raise funding for their projects.

New technological tools also have facilitated crowdsourcing research, a process in which open calls are made for voluntary contributions to STEM problem-solving. These calls are typically either to a non-specified group of individuals ("the crowd") or to individuals with specific expertise, thus leveraging the skills and knowledge of many.

Without public participants and their contributions, some STEM research that addresses challenging problems would not be practical or even possible, e.g., projects mandating data collection from many geographical locations or over long periods of time or projects that require expertise for analysis of data as well as large sets of visual or numeric data. PPSR approaches hold promise to continue to address new research questions and contribute to ongoing STEM research. Moreover, citizen science and crowdsourcing research provide opportunities for the broadest possible participation in learning how STEM research is done and in engaging in it directly. Participants include individuals from urban, suburban and rural communities; diverse economic, geographic, racial, ethnic, gender, and linguistic groups; and individuals with a range of abilities and disabilities.

The motivation for PPSR may be derived from community concerns or may be researcher-led. The level of public involvement varies from being contributory (e.g., collecting and recording data) to collaborative (e.g., analyzing samples and discussing results) to co-created (in which the public might be involved in all phases of the scientific process from defining the question for investigation, to experimenting, analyzing, and reporting). Thus, people with various interests and abilities are often able to participate and contribute productively.

With the opportunity to reach more people and therefore collect and analyze data sets more extensively than possible through the efforts of scientists alone, PPSR may go beyond simply enhancing our ability to do traditional STEM research better. Citizen science and crowdsourcing science enable us to pursue entirely new avenues of research and development that can only be achieved through public-scientist collaborations. The different perspectives and habits of mind that public participants can bring to bear on the interpretation of data may also open new avenues of research and development.

Over the past decade, NSF has funded hundreds of STEM research projects that rely on PPSR across a diverse array of fields. The scope of PPSR is broad and encompasses geosciences and biological sciences, technology and engineering, social and behavioral sciences, education, computer and information sciences, and physical sciences. These projects collectively have created a strong foundation for future PPSR activities and have identified areas for potential improvement and expansion. The next phase of NSF investments will expand beyond project-by-project approaches to explore underlying issues and areas for innovation. In particular, this next phase could help identify: new research challenges that might be addressed using PPSR; new PPSR-enabling technology; social aspects of working with the public; effective PPSR program design; learning experience facilitated by PPSR; ways in which PPSR can broaden participation in STEM; and a myriad of data-related issues, including data quality and collection, data management, visualization, and data ownership models. This phase of investments should also prompt the broader community to tackle long-standing but unresolved STEM challenges and to open doors to new STEM research areas.

To achieve this Agency Priority Goal NSF will use three specific mechanisms to fund proposals that explicitly include PPSR approaches: Research Coordination Networks (RCNs), EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGERs), and supplements to existing awards. Research Coordination Networks support communication and coordination across disciplinary, organizational, institutional, and geographic boundaries, thus facilitating ongoing activities above the project level. EAGERs are designed as "high risk-high payoff" awards. These types of awards will likely push our collective understandings of how PPSR is leveraged to support scientific discovery and the public's engagement with research. Supplements to existing awards provide opportunities to (1) include PPSR approaches in projects that are appropriate for PPSR but haven't already incorporated PPSR approaches and (2) for other projects to deepen their use of PPSR approaches.

This Agency Priority Goal also takes advantage of the Executive Branch's momentum in this area. For example, the White House honored Citizen Science Champions of Change and included citizen science projects and opportunities in its recent science fair. Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) rolled out a new toolkit for federal-sponsored PPSR projects on September 30, 2015 and issued a memo with actions for federal agencies with respect to PPSR. Among the public communities that NSF serves, this Agency Priority Goal is relevant and timely. It addresses the need for investments in PPSR as articulated in recent journals, such as Science; at conferences, such as the citizen science pre-conference workshop at AAAS in 2015; and by practitioner organizations, such as the Citizen Science Association.

Relationship to agency strategic goals and objectives

PPSR projects have both scientific value and educational value. Thus, PPSR supports NSF Strategic Goal 1, Objective 1 ("Invest in fundamental research to ensure significant continuing advances across science, engineering, and education") and NSF Strategic Goal 2, Objective 2 ("Build the capacity of the Nation to address societal challenges using a suite of formal, informal and broadly available STEM educational mechanisms").

Key barriers and challenges to its achievement

1. Coordinate cross-program and cross-directorate investments that enhance both an understanding of and ability to implement PPSR approaches.

2. Manage expectations among colleagues across the federal government and public sphere as PPSR is further developed to support their daily work.

External factors

OSTP and the Federal Community of Practice for Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing (FCPCSC) have directly contributed to development of this Agency Priority Goal. In addition, activities by federal agencies and offices related to open innovation, citizen science, and crowdsourcing research will inform the state of the field with respect to challenges and opportunities in PPSR.

Learn More

Agency Priority Goals

FY 14-15: Increase the Nation’s Data Science Capacity

Statement:

Improve the Nation’s capacity in data science by investing in the development of human capital and infrastructure.

Description:

NSF will develop strategies to build and sustain data infrastructure for the 21^st century through CIF21.

NSF will coordinate with other agencies through the National Science and Technology Council to achieve this goal.

Learn More

Agency Priority Goals

FY 16-17 Agency Priority Goal:

Invest strategically in public participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research (PPSR)

Statement:

By September 30, 2017, NSF will implement mechanisms to expand and deepen the engagement of the public in research.

Description:

Problem/Opportunity:

Relationship to agency strategic goals and objectives

Key barriers and challenges to its achievement

1. Coordinate cross-program and cross-directorate investments that enhance both an understanding of and ability to implement PPSR approaches.

2. Manage expectations among colleagues across the federal government and public sphere as PPSR is further developed to support their daily work.

External factors

Learn More

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