Way, way up in northern Norway, reminiscent of a scene from His Dark Materials, scientists are currently busy hiding seeds in a giant underground fridge. In the much warmer fields of Southern France, they have a more vibrant approach to biodiversity. Here, farmers are breeding and growing wheat. Their new varieties of wheat are in fact very old indeed. They hark back to a time when farmers wanted bread that was good to eat rather than easy to make on an industrial scale. The farmers here argue that their new/old wheat is tastier and less likely to lead to gluten intolerance. Thanks to an organisation called Reseau Semences Paysanne, a small group of scientists have been attracted from Paris to take a look at these multicultural fields. Veronique Chable and Isabelle Goldringer from INRA are now working with the farmers to share and advance their collective knowledge about biodiversity, the genetics of seeds, and the future of farming. The INRA researchers and their farmer colleagues have become what we call "Citizen Scientists."

As part of our project on Science, Technology and Civil Society (STACS), we want to contact and profile a number of these citizen scientists. As we described in The Public Value of Science, these are scientists who are engaged in activities that in some way address issues of social or environmental concern. While this might describe much scientific research in the long run, we're looking for the people who are innovating, doing things in new ways, hooking up with green NGOs or patient groups, getting funding from unusual places, that sort of thing. They may be collaborating with scientists in sub-Saharan Africa or sociologists in Salzburg, they may be working with patients to target rare genetic disorders or exploring the ethics of their own research on stem cells, or they may even be whistleblowers, unhappy with their company's R & D decisions.

So, if you know one or if you are one, please send me your nominations for citizen scientists, by email or blog comment. Our report will be out towards the end of the year and our hope is that we can teach European science some lessons and make it easier for other scientists to break moulds.

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