Centre for Citizen Science and Biodiversity Informatics (CCSBI)

Citizen Science, also known as participatory science, volunteer-based monitoring, or crowd science, is scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and scientific institutions. Citizen science is recognized as an excellent tool for democratizing science and promoting equitable access to scientific data.

For the past four decades, the Kerala Forest Research Institute has trained and engaged a large number of volunteers from different backgrounds to participate in many research programmes, especially wildlife surveys and other biodiversity documentation projects. Digital tools, especially smartphone cameras and GPS applications, have revolutionized participatory science and have the potential to generate big data sets required for developing policies to address global problems such as biodiversity loss, climate change, etc.

The Centre for Citizen Science and Biodiversity Informatics is established to support evidence-based policy-making in biodiversity conservation by democratizing science. Our specific objectives are to:

Coordinate and co-develop citizen science programmes in critical areas,
Generate high-quality biodiversity data for science and conservation,
Organise capacity-building workshops for researchers to develop effective citizen science programmes, big data analytics and policy making,
Develop public outreach programmes to improve environmental awareness and the capacity of citizens to contribute quality data and
Collate biodiversity data from the state.