Citizen Technoscience
- Seeking to overcome the traditionally exclusionary nature of technoscience, scientists and communities around the world are working to produce different forms of citizen technoscience—technoscience that prioritizes the use of simple, low-cost, and small-scale scientific methods and tools, actively involving or even being led by citizens without prior scientific or technical training.
- Through initiatives such as citizen science and open-hardware/grassroots technologies, in recent years citizen technoscience has made important advances, developing methods and prototypes that offer accessible and ingenious pathways to enhance public participation in technoscience.
- However, the contribution of citizen technoscience to the substantial transformative processes needed to address the socio-environmental crisis remains limited. The reasons for this low effectiveness are varied, ranging from funding constraints to challenges in data validation, particularly affecting projects based in the Global South.
- Funded by the Millennium Science Initiative of the Chilean Government, CITEC will map, analyze, and experiment with projects and initiatives that are adopting citizen technoscience approaches for the production of scientific knowledge and/or the development of technologies aimed at the socio-environmental crisis, seeking to strengthen their impact in processes of just transition toward sustainability.
