Five citizen science projects receive funding from UKRI

Thanks to £1.46 million in funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), five major new projects are set to engage members of the public in research on topics as diverse as mental health and microplastics.

Ben Williams is a research fellow within the Air Quality Management Resource Centre at University of the West of England Bristol (UWE), and leads the HOME Co-Lab project, which has been funded by UKRI to investigate the presence of airborne microplastics in people’s homes.

‘When we think about microplastic, we think about it in the marine environment and we think about it in food … we thought it would be interesting to try to close the microplastic biospheric cycle,’ says Williams. ‘We know it’s in the water, we know it’s in the food we eat, but is it in our air?’

Citizen scientists involved in measuring quantities of these tiny particles of plastic will set up passive samplers in different rooms in their homes. Every fortnight, they’ll attach clip-on microscopes to their phones, take zoomed-in photographs of the particles in each sampler and then upload them to the project platform for analysis. Collected samples will be sent back to UWE for identification using Raman spectroscopy to determine the types of plastic and other particles that are present.

Without members of the public taking part in the research, data collection from the homes of participants would be impractical, but there are also other motivating factors for Williams. ‘I think citizen science is incredibly important,’ he says. ‘People put a lot of faith in the outcome of science and a lot of trust in what we say as scientists. And I think it’s really important that we can bring people into the process.’