Participatory, Citizen, and Community Science

A Guide to Terminology

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is proud of our role in building public participation in science. Millions of people across the globe are now engaged in bird-related participatory science each year—with many millions more engaged in projects beyond birds.

There are are many terms and definitions that help describe this exciting movement—including citizen, community, and participatory science. We thought we’d share some context and history on the most common terms.

Participants in the Freedom Day Bird Walk with bird checklist
Participants in the Freedom Day Bird Walk. Photo by Marilú Lopez-Fretts.

Origins of the Term Citizen Science

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology used the term citizen science in English language contexts for nearly three decades to refer to the process of the public voluntarily sharing data with scientific institutions for analysis and interpretation. This concept is so important to the Lab’s identity that it was featured in our mission statement: To interpret and conserve the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds and nature. 

Coined in the mid-1990’s by Rick Bonney, here at the Lab, and separately by Alan Irwin in the UK, the term came into common use in the 2000’s—especially as digital platforms like eBird and Zooniverse were built to facilitate large-scale citizen-science data collection and sharing. In response to the Lab’s growing citizen-science efforts, the Lab established a Citizen Science program with an endowed directorship, which later merged with the Education program to become the Center for Engagement in Science and Nature. Many in the citizen science field view the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as both an originator of the term and a key pioneer of the modern form of citizen science practiced globally today. For example, the Citizen Science Association was formed by several Lab staff and other partners in 2013 and has been a key thought leader supporting the evolution of citizen science concepts and frameworks for the past decade. 

Shifts Toward Community Science Terminology

Alongside the expansive growth of the field, the term citizen science became increasingly questioned, particularly in the U.S., because it implies that participants must be citizens and therefore is seen by some as exclusionary. For this reason, many organizations have been shifting their terminology. Notably, in 2018, the National Audubon Society replaced the term citizen science with community science in their programming and communications.

This approach too has been questioned because community science was a pre-existing term typically used to refer to efforts that are designed by communities to directly benefit their communities. Such efforts are designed with the end goal to improve quality of life through, for example, cleaner water, air, or soil. This community-led approach is seen by some in the field as importantly different from engaging people in crowd-sourced data collection that is led by the interests and priorities of professional scientists. This is why the term community science is seen by some in the field as confusing and/or inappropriate outside of a community-led context. Within the Lab, some community-centered projects, including Celebrate Urban Birds, have used the terms community science, community-led science, and community-based participatory research (CBPR) to describe work aimed at benefiting local communities.

Shifts Toward Participatory Science Terminology

More recently, some organizations have gravitated toward the term participatory science. The Citizen Science Association voted during its spring 2023 meeting to become the Association for the Advancement of the Participatory Sciences. The Environmental Protection Agency is also using the term participatory science in their programming. The Center for Engagement in Science and Nature has transitioned our terminology from using citizen science to participatory science, except for projects that are community driven where we use the term community science. 

Definitions:

Participatory Science

The process of the public voluntarily sharing data toward a shared research goal, conservation aim, or community priority.

Community Science

The process of community members identifying community priorities and organizing voluntary data collection, synthesis, and/or reporting to address those priorities.

Citizen Science

The process of the public voluntarily sharing data with scientific institutions for analysis and interpretation. Term used by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology from the mid 1990s to 2020.

Key References