Abstract

In the introduction to this symposium on Participative Science, I defend an understanding of science as a «public good», adopting John Dewey’s notion of «the public». I propose to focus on «Citizen Science» in order to rethink the relationship between science and society in democratic forms of life. I analyze Biohacking, Crowdsourcing, and public decision making based on Big Data, as cases showing how citizen participation in sciences potentially provides both empowerment for citizens and improvement for scientific research. In this light, I suggest that Human and Social Sciences (SSH) are essential in order to understand participative science practices within global technological changes, and argue for the need to integrate SSH into technical and scientific innovation.