The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) recently published a new report on how advanced computing technologies like the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) stand to benefit from a large-scale union with citizen science research. The report, titled Grand Challenges for the Convergence of Computational and Citizen Science Research, assesses the ways that this union can also ultimately enhance scientific capability more broadly, laying out the necessary next steps to make this convergence a reality.
Advancing Cutting-Edge Technology
Bringing computational and citizen science/crowdsourcing research together has the potential to reshape our scientific capacity, leading to more accurate and timely discoveries, applications, and monitoring. Already, citizen scientists map biodiversity on iNaturalist, analyze protein folding configurations to advance drug discovery on Foldit, and determine antibiotic resistance through Bash the Bug. These users possess the knowledge, creativity, and skills that make up for what technology cannot do alone and push scientific research forward.
Convergence offers a unique opportunity to do vital research into building trust, access, and transparency into AI systems by embedding them in real-world participatory contexts. Citizen science projects provide a built-in user base, ultimately making technology like AI safer and more trustworthy through large-scale experimentation. Key to the success of this venture is the breaking down of silos and increased knowledge-sharing between academia and industry — to the benefit of both.
Notably, these contributors can also enrich AI models used in research with contextual insights and provide essential edge-case observations that increase the validity of data, making the most of AI’s strengths while avoiding its downfalls. But their impact has broad applications across industry sectors. Citizen scientist/crowdsourced contributions can improve weather forecasting through on-the-ground reporting, for example; convergence thus opens the door to improving our natural resource management, agriculture, and more. By harnessing the strengths of citizen scientists, crowdsourcers, and computational technologies, we can accelerate the scientific process across disciplines, reliably produce world-leading innovations, and elevate American industry.
Creating a Tech-Minded Populace
Large-scale convergence also promotes the formation of a more technologically-literate society. To make convergence work on the participant side, non-expert users need to understand, in a simpler way, how advanced computing technology like AI works and how to use it. Having such exposure may encourage the use of such technologies in other aspects of life as well as introduce it to brand-new users. Removing the barrier for entry and the legitimizing of these tools through their very visible use in scientific research projects will make their benefits clear to everyday users.
Read the Full Report
For a full picture of the impact of large-scale convergence, as well as key recommendations across sectors for how to make it a reality, we encourage all members of the computing community to read the Grand Challenges for the Convergence of Computational and Citizen Science Research report below.
Read the Full Report Here
Join the Community Chat
For another way to engage with the findings in this report, join us for an upcoming CCC Community Chat on May 20th, 2026 at 3:30pm. This 45-minute Zoom webinar, hosted by the report’s authors, will dive into key findings, follow up with a series of lightning talks with experts from citizen and computational science, and end with a Q&A. Featuring guest speaker Marc Kuchner, Citizen Science Officer at NASA!
Register and Submit Questions Here
Tune in to the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates and more reports like this. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.
