26 Jul 2022
Our wonderful guest presenters, Libby Hepburn and Associate Professor Alice Motion discussed how citizen science supports the UNESCO Open Science Recommendation.
Libby is a founder and continuing advocate for the Australian Citizen Science Association and also the Citizen Science Global Partnership (CSGP). She is Vice-Chair of the Citizen Science and Open Science Community of Practice and is working globally to maximise the opportunities presented by the UNESCO Open Science Recommendation to leverage citizen science into its rightful place as a mainstream science process.
Libby believes strongly that citizen science can be scaled up and replicated globally to make a huge contribution to the science needed for current and future challenges. Place based science working with communities enriches people’s lives, deepens their relationship, understanding and enjoyment of their world and gives them increased agency with respect to how their place evolves, so she has spent much of the last 20 years working in this space.
As a project manager, after 8 years building the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre, its community and work, Libby has spent the last 11 years leading the Atlas of Life Far South Coast NSW. The Atlas now has over 1,250 contributors, 57,000+ records, 7 Bioblitzes, many diverse projects and a long-term community of interest with expertise in many aspects of local ecology and biodiversity. Libby’s continuing quest is to encourage more scientists to work long term with interested communities like ours.
Associate Professor Alice Motion is a Westpac Research Fellow at the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney where she leads the Science Communication, Outreach, Participation and Education (SCOPE) Research Group. Finding ways to connect people with science and to make research more accessible is the overarching theme of Alice’s interdisciplinary research.
Alice is the founder of the Breaking Good project – a citizen science project that aims to empower high school and undergraduate students to be active researchers in projects that will improve human health. She has a strong commitment to Citizen Science and is the Co-Chair of the University of Sydney’s Citizen Science Node, which aims to enhance Citizen Science in Australia through research and practice. Alice is the Host Representative of the Australian Citizen Science Association where she works with others to strengthen participation in, and the impact of, Citizen Science in our region.
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