Citizen Science projects or community science actively involves volunteers in scientific research. The assignments can vary greatly, from observations, measurements and calculations to communicating all together on the results, upto fully setting up and implementing a research.
Citizen science can be applied in various disciplines and situations. You can go out together and count shells or play a game at home and help advance research in the field of dementia. You can transcribe population registers in the archive or build a measuring station in collaboration with your neighbourhood.
The scientific result provides insights and new knowledge.
The University of Antwerp very specifically wants to bridge the gap between university and society, from local to international, and for many years now has actively put the focus on citizen science. Several research groups and scientists have participated to familiar and less familiar citizen science projects or have developed their own succesfull projects.