Public Participation in Scientific Research: 2012 Conference Evaluation

The overall goal of the project was to convene a large-scale, open conference on public participation in scientific research, bringing together science researchers, project leaders, educators, technology specialists, evaluators, and others from across many disciplines to discuss advancing the field of PPSR. The conference included three sessions for posters and conversations, and five plenary sessions of presentations. The meeting culminated in an open meeting to explore strategies for large-scale collaborations to support and advance work across this field of practice, through the development of an association. The driving purposes are the furthering of PPSR as a field (professionalization), formalizing PPSR as a field of practice, and increasing collaborations across disciplines. The overarching evaluation question, therefore, is a progress question: did the conference lead to any large-scale collaborative efforts to support the field; large-scale collaborations to advance work across this field, and the development of an association or other professionalizing activities? To these ends, the following evaluation questions guided this effort: 1. Why did people choose to attend? What are their motivations? 2. What are differences in perception of PPSR and data use? 3. What are entry expectations for the field? For the conference? 4. Do conference participants support the purposes/intents of the conference? Does this change as the conference progresses? 5. In what ways are participants willing to engage beyond the conference (with others; with the field) and does this change during the conference? 6. In what ways does interest in collaborations increase or decay in the participants post the conference experience? The appendix of this report includes the questionnaires used in the study.