The General Services Administration and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars have launched a new online hub to facilitate citizen science and crowdsourcing projects in support of the federal government.
Kelly Olson, senior innovation adviser and director of Challenge.gov, wrote in a blog post published Thursday that Citizenscience.gov looks to connect federal agencies to the public in an effort to develop new approaches to address real-world issues.
GSA Administrator Denise Turner Roth, who is also an inductee into Executive Mosaic‘s Wash100 for 2016, said the agency hopes to assist its federal partners to address scientific and societal challenges through tools such as Citizenscience.gov.
The site features a project catalog, toolkit and a community of practice for federal crowdsourcing and citizen science, which aim toward public engagement in scientific research and voluntary participation in decision-making, Olson wrote.
She added that those projects also works to provide hands-on learning experiences to the public in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
“Citizenscience.gov was not developed in a vaccuum… It has become a necessity as the field of citizen science expands both inside and outside of government,” Olson said.
GSA and the Wilson Center developed the website in response to a memo from the White House that calls for agencies to explore crowdsourcing and citizen science projects to support their missions.
