The motivation for citizens' involvement in life sciences research is predicted by age and gender.

Martin Lakomý,Markus Dettenhofer,Hana Machackova,Michela G Bertero,Renata Hlavová,Maria Lindholm,Gustav Bohlin,Ulrich S Tran

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0237140

Abstract

Open Science is an umbrella term encompassing multiple concepts as open access to publications, open data, open education and citizen science that aim to make science more open and transparent. Citizen science, an important facet of Open Science, actively involves non-scientists in the research process, and can potentially be beneficial for multiple actors, such as scientists, citizens, policymakers and society in general. However, the reasons that motivate different segments of the public to participate in research are still understudied. Therefore, based on data gathered from a survey conducted in Czechia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the UK (N = 5,870), this study explores five types of incentives that can motivate individuals to become involved in life sciences research. The results demonstrate that men and younger individuals are more persuaded by extrinsic motives (external benefits or rewards), as compared with women and older people, who are driven by intrinsic motives (that originates from within an individual). This paper shows that specific strata of the population are differentially motivated to engage in research, thereby providing relevant knowledge for effectively designing public involvement activities that target various groups of the public in research projects.

Highlights

Open Science strives to make scientific knowledge, including its processes and methods of production, more transparent, accessible, applicable, and responsive to the needs of researchers and society [1,2,3]
Questions selected from the ORION public survey questionnaire for this study are presented in Table 1, in the same order as they were placed within the questionnaire
Participants are from six European countries, including Czechia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (UK), represented by 16.2%–17.2% of the sample per country

Summary

Introduction

Open Science strives to make scientific knowledge, including its processes and methods of production, more transparent, accessible, applicable, and responsive to the needs of researchers and society [1,2,3]. Open Science entails several approaches, such as open data, open access to publications, open peer review and open source, to cite a few, that aim to increase the accessibility, transparency and re-use of knowledge. Open Science embraces the involvement of the general public and other stakeholders in the research process—so-called citizen science. Responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains

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Results

Conclusion