Poster on Citizen Science Business Models

On Wednesday afternoon I will be presenting a poster on "Business Models that Support, and Benefit from, the Work of Citizen Scientists.  I've been working on this for months now and documented much of that journey on this web site.  But I've not pulled everything together publicly until now.  Of course, while this proposes some overall models there is still a LOT of work to build this out and a lot of advice on making these ideas work.  You'll see much more of that in the months to come.

Below is an abstract of the poster though you can see the whole thing online here.  You can also find all poster descriptions on the conference web site.

Title: For Love and Money: Business Models that Support, and Benefit From, the Work of Citizen Scientists

Description: As citizen science continues to grow as a field, and as open innovation concepts gain traction in the business world, researchers have begun demonstrating  the economic value citizen scientists can offer.  This includes helping companies innovate new products and helping both non-profit and for-profit organizations reduce the cost of research.  But there are many opportunities still untapped for citizen scientists to be financially rewarded for their work.  This poster attempts to identify these opportunities in ways that 1) increase opportunities for citizen scientists to profit from their work, 2) encourage companies to develop products that support (and can be sold to) citizen scientists, and 3) help companies benefit from the work performed by citizen scientists.  To meet this goal I have reviewed 1) citizen science projects fully or partially supported through crowdfunding campaigns, and 2) citizen science activities that previously have been or reasonably could be supported by private firms on projects in high-technology industries.  From those I have developed a series of proposed business models citizen scientists can use that provide value to others, and can be used to support future citizen science work. All to support future research on how to best implement each proposed model.

Finally, on Thursday there will be a series of "Open Format" sessions for people to discuss topics informally and of their own choosing.  I've proposed one titled "What Opportunities Exist for Citizen Scientists to work with for-profit businesses".  If you have thoughts on this proposal, want to vote for it as a topic, or have your own topic to propose, check out the Padlet site at http://padlet.com/alison_kestrel_/citsci2015.

See you soon!