Definition
Open Science enables innovative approaches in the scientific discourse. The progress of scientific discoveries can be accelerated by enabling new social actors to engage in the scientific discourse, beyond the traditional academic community. In addition, a broader sharing of scientific knowledge across society helps to prevent misinformation and supports worldwide education and the democratization of science.
Developing new participatory methods and validation techniques to incorporate and value inputs from social actors beyond the traditional scientific community, including through citizen science, crowdsource-based scientific projects, citizen involvement in community-owned archival institutions, and other forms of participatory science.
UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021)
Goals at CERN
CERN encourages meaningful participation of the public in citizen science programmes that contribute to advancing the CERN mission or responding to societal challenges. Working with Member and Associate Member States and other relevant stakeholders, CERN aims to support a diverse range of practices to open up science and innovation to citizens, in particular the young generation.
Services and activities
There is currently only a limited number of citizen science initiatives ongoing at CERN.
LHC@home
This is a volunteer computing initiative, inspired by SETI@home, a successful citizen science initiative initiated in 1999 by the Berkeley SETI Research Center to analyze radio signals. Using similar technology, LHC@home allows volunteers from around the world to donate their idle computing resources to help CERN physicists compare theory with experimental data, in the search for new fundamental particles and answers to questions about the universe. Whether it's calibrating searches for particles, fine-tuning the machines and beam dynamics, contributing to building new theories on dark matter or creating simulations of antimatter and new phenomena never-before-seen in the LHC detectors. Users can choose between different projects or contribute to all of them at the same time.
Key contacts at CERN
- Annabella Zamora (CERN Exhibitions Team)
- CERN Open Science Office