iDiv’s citizen science activities address biodiversity research questions together with citizens and NGOs, natural history societies, museums and conservation agencies. We run several biodiversity citizen science projects, for example in insect monitoring, freshwater and soil research.
Our Citizen Science Projects
Researching Citizen Science at iDiv
At iDiv, we currently run several citizen science projects, but we also research citizen science. We are interested in the following ecological questions:
- How can citizen science foster innovation in biodiversity research?
- How can we combine structured and opportunistic data?
- How can we provide infrastructures for citizen science, e.g. the Living Atlas Nature Germany platform, or apps for citizen science monitoring?
In addition we want to understand how citizen science impacts people:
- How does citizen science promote learning-by-doing and scientific understanding?
- How does citizen science enhance support for nature conservation?
- How does engagement in citizen science foster environmental behaviour and well-being?
To foster citizen science, we have led the development of the Citizen Science Strategy 2030 for Germany together with a wide range of stakeholders from research and civil society. We work with experts from society to co-develop analyses of biodiversity status and trends: To understand the complex patterns of biodiversity change, we compile biodiversity datasets from heterogeneous data sources on different taxa, including citizen science data, and develop and apply statistical methods to analyse them.