September 30, 2015

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) has introduced a bill that would authorize and promote federal agencies to use citizen science and crowdsourcing to help solve problems within the federal government. The Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2015 (S. 2113) will allow citizens to offer their innovation and expertise voluntarily to federal agencies in order to reduce the use of federal resources.

If passed, members of the public would be able to voluntarily participate in the federal scientific process and open calls would be issued for voluntary assistance from large groups of individuals. According to Sen. Coons, the bill would make larger amounts of scientific research available to the federal government.

As Sen. Coons stated, “Open innovation tools like crowdsourcing and citizen science can present solutions to real challenges by drawing on the knowledge, creativity, and expertise of citizens, but it's an approach that is too often underutilized in government.”   

Sources: eenews, senate.gov