The concept for the Citizen Science Association originated at the Public Participation for Scientific Research Conference in 2012 held in conjunction with the Ecological Society of America conference in Portland, Oregon. Through a series of NSF grants the network of citizen science projects and professionals was further developed and the Citizen Science Association formation as an official organization developed along with a website. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology hosted the beginning of the Association web content and the Schoodic Institute helped launch the organization and is a continuing fiscal sponsor the CSA.
Activities
The association also holds a professional focused conference series every two years for the practitioner and research community to discuss the best practices in citizen science titled the Citizen Science Association Conference or CitSciXXXX where XXXX would be replaced by the year. For example, CitSci2019 was held March 13–19, 2019. The association has a board of directors elected by the members and a collection of professional working groups establishing standards, identifying best practices, focusing research, building technology, and exploring the ethics of Citizen Science. The Citizen Science Association has a memorandum of understanding with other Citizen Science Associations for collaboration and coordination. These other organizations include the European Citizen Science Association, the Australian Citizen Science Association, and the forming communities and associations in Asia and Africa. The United Nations officially recognised the Citizen Science Association and is working with the Citizen Science Global Partnership on how citizen science can best be applied to help tackle the Sustainable Development Goals.
Citizen Science Association working groups
The working groups as with many professional organizations focus on priority areas of the science and practice of citizen science. As of February 2020 the following nine working groups have formed.
Citizen Science Association has a Ubiquity Press published, open-access, peer-reviewed journal called. Rather than focusing on reporting citizen science projects' scientific outcomes, but reporting research, review and synthesis, case studies, essays, methods, and meeting reports. The journal is published online throughout the year along with special article collections.
