In late March 2024, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced their Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge winners. Five challenge project submissions were named “Champions of Open Science”, with Zooniverse winning the “Open Science to Advance Innovation” category.
CIERA Professor Cliff Johnson is the Co-Director and Science Lead for Zooniverse, with CIERA Postdoctoral alum and VP of Science Engagement at the Adler Planetarium Dr. Laura Trouille serving as Zooniverse’s Principal Investigator.
“It’s a wonderful achievement for the Zooniverse platform to be recognized for our leading role in facilitating people-powered research,” said Prof Johnson. “It feels good to share this win not only with the rest of the Zooniverse team, but with the entire community of volunteers who contribute their time and effort, and make all this good work possible.”
The Zooniverse team during their 2023 meeting at CIERA
Zooniverse is an open-source platform that allows members of the public to participate in crowdsourced scientific research. Since 2007, Zooniverse has become the largest online open data platform for people-powered research, with over 2.6 million registered users across 90 active projects. By enabling volunteers from around the globe to classify glitches in gravitational wave signals, mark cell structure for cancer research, transcribe historic documents, and so much more, Zooniverse helps solve the threat that time required to process and analyze massive datasets poses to the pace of discovery.
“We’re deeply honored by this recognition,” shared Dr. Trouille. “It underscores our commitment to Open Science through people-powered research, valuing the public’s diverse expertise and driving innovation beyond traditional boundaries. By democratizing access to scientific spaces and discovery, the Zooniverse not only advances research, but also builds trust in science and fosters meaningful engagement within our global community.”
The White House OSTP Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge engaged researchers, community scientists, educators, innovators, and the broader public to highlight efforts to expand access to research for the benefit of science and society.
Other winners include:
- Open Science to Serve Communities: Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA)
- Open Science to Advance Global Solutions: Pediatric Cancer Data Commons (PCDC) at the University of Chicago
- Open Science to Advance Education: Food, Math, and Science Teaching Enhancement Resource (FoodMASTER) Initiative
- Technical Advancement to Enable Open Science: Project Jupyter
To get involved in Zooniverse, visit the Projects page, choose one you like the look of, and get started.