Who can be a citizen scientist?

Citizen scientists typically are not professional scientists. Rather, they are curious or concerned people who collaborate with professional scientists in ways that advance scientific research on topics they care about.

Today, citizen scientists come from all walks of life including retirees seeking to socially connect with others while applying their seasoned knowledge and experiences in ways that help others; online gamers who lend their skills to specially designed programs to analyze folding protein structures and shape the building blocks of life; educators and students who want a more hands-on experience outside the classroom; environmental justice advocates who want to see critical data with their own eyes; current and former NFL and NBA cheerleaders in science professions who engage thousands of non-traditional audiences in citizen science; and even prisoners are getting involved.

Getting Started

The best first step is SciStarter’s Foundations of Citizen Science Training—a short, self-guided introduction that helps you understand how to contribute reliable data and earn a digital badge. From there, the Project Finder allows you to explore projects by location, topic, or activity. Create a free account to track your contributions, receive personalized recommendations, and connect with scientists and fellow volunteers.

A Global Movement

Citizen science is global. The Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences connects practitioners in the U.S. while other professional associations support growth across  Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. The Citizen Science Global Partnership links these networks across continents.

Platforms are flourishing. iNaturalist, eBird, Zooniverse, CitSci.org, Anecdata, FieldScope, and OpenStreetMap support projects on everything from astronomy to wildlife to health. In Europe, EU-Citizen.Science curates projects and training. In Australia, SciStarter Australia adapts the hub model locally. New instances of SciStarter in Sri Lanka, Japan, and Africa are set to debut in 2026.

SciStarter connects many of these efforts, helping volunteers see how their small contributions become part of something larger, across disciplines and across the world.

Who is facilitating the movement?

SciStarter facilitates direct connections between thousands of scientists/project leaders and millions of potential participants. SciStarter also works with other facilitators to bring citizen science to their communities across all stages of life from its work with the Girl Scouts of USA, school districts, universities, corporate volunteer programs, media partnerships, libraries, museums and senior citizens (among others). See SciStarter.org/Partners to learn more.

Libraries and museums are playing an increasingly important role in connecting people to projects and locally relevant issues. Some libraries loan kits to enrich projects by providing everything a citizen scientist needs to engage in projects. Library staff and facilitators can visit the Library Resources page to support local communities. SciStarter also works with science centers and museums across the country on programs focusing on climate hazards: SciStarter.org/NOAA.

Federal agencies help catalyze citizen science. Federal government and nongovernmental organizations engage people in “addressing societal needs and accelerating science, technology and innovation,” through citizen science and crowdsourcing. Many agencies — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Smithsonian Institution, National Parks Service (NPS) and other U.S. Federal Agencies — support citizen science through investments in research, development, innovation and infrastructure. Learn more about the Federal Community of Practice for Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science.

The Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act describes the benefits of public participation in science to include “accelerating scientific research, increasing cost-effectiveness to maximize return on taxpayer dollars, addressing societal needs and providing hands-on learning in STEM.”

CitizenScience.gov is the official government website “designed to accelerate the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science across the U.S. government. The site provides a portal to three key components: a catalog of federally supported citizen science projects, a toolkit to assist federal practitioners with designing and maintaining their projects and a gateway to a community of hundreds of citizen science practitioners and coordinators across government as called for in the Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2016 (15 USC 3724).”

Other Funders Help Support the Growth of Citizen Science

Private foundations, corporations, individual donors, and NGOs provide financial support to create, sustain and scale projects and in some cases, to support participation in addressing societal needs and accelerating science, technology and innovation. Funders include Schmidt Futures, the Sloan Foundation, the Moore Foundation, the Knight Foundation, Verizon and others. See examples on SciStarter.org/Partners.

How is citizen science being formalized?

Science and citizen science have the same historic roots that link it to people who sought discovery in their leisure time. When science became a profession in the 1800s, contributions from non-professionals continued. Yet, only recently has the profession of science reunited with leisure participation. Many recent studies have shown data from volunteers are as reliable as from professionals. For more challenging areas, many new statistical techniques have been developed to address data quality and other aspects of “big data.” The number of research studies benefiting from citizen science is growing every year.